A quartet of chemists at the University of Oxford has, for the first time, found a way to get two beryllium atoms to bond with one another in a complex compound. In their paper published in the journal Science, Josef Boronski, ...
A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S. has successfully pulled an ice core from Antarctica's Ong Valley that contains samples of Earth's atmosphere from up to 5 million years ago. In their ...
An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests the Ice-Free Corridor (IFC) proposed to have existed between ice sheets along a route from Beringia to the Great Plains came to exist approximately 13,800 ...
In collaboration with an international team of researchers, Michigan State University (MSU) has helped create the world's lightest version—or isotope—of magnesium to date.
Condensed Matter
Dec 23, 2021
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Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have linked together, or "entangled," the mechanical motion and electronic properties of a tiny blue crystal, giving it a quantum edge in measuring electric ...
General Physics
Aug 5, 2021
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Scientists from the PTB and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK), both Germany, have carried out pioneering optical measurements of highly charged ions with unprecedented precision. To do this, they isolated ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 29, 2020
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441
Beryllium, a hard, silvery metal long used in X-ray machines and spacecraft, is finding a new role in the quest to bring the power that drives the sun and stars to Earth. Beryllium is one of the two main materials used for ...
Plasma Physics
Jul 2, 2019
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The rare element beryllium is mainly known for being a component of emeralds, aquamarines, and other precious stones. However, in Nature Communications, an international team of scientists from the University of Bayreuth ...
Materials Science
Jun 27, 2019
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Nuclei in their lowest energy states (ground state) are composed of neutrons and protons. Two protons and two neutrons in a nucleus can cluster together to form alpha particles. When the nucleus gets nearly enough energy ...
General Physics
Feb 21, 2019
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18
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have "flash-frozen" a flat crystal of 150 beryllium ions (electrically charged atoms), opening new possibilities for simulating magnetism at the quantum ...
Quantum Physics
Feb 20, 2019
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Beryllium ( /bəˈrɪliəm/ bə-ril-ee-əm) is the chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a divalent element which occurs naturally only in combination with other elements in minerals. Notable gemstones which contain beryllium include beryl (aquamarine, emerald) and chrysoberyl. As a free element it is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal.
Beryllium is used primarily as a hardening agent in alloys, notably beryllium copper. In structural applications, high flexural rigidity, thermal stability, thermal conductivity and low density (1.85 times that of water) make beryllium a quality aerospace material for high-speed aircraft, missiles, space vehicles and communication satellites. Because of its low density and atomic mass, beryllium is relatively transparent to X-rays and other forms of ionizing radiation; therefore, it is the most common window material for X-ray equipment and in particle physics experiments. The high thermal conductivity of beryllium and beryllium oxide have led to their use in heat transport and heat sinking applications.
The commercial use of beryllium metal presents technical challenges due to the toxicity (especially by inhalation) of beryllium-containing dusts. Beryllium is corrosive to tissue, and can cause a chronic life-threatening allergic disease called berylliosis in some people. As it is not synthesized in stars, beryllium is a relatively rare element in both the Earth and the universe. The element is not known to be necessary or useful for either plant or animal life.
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