Overview
- Researchers led by Luca Bindi examined 34 microscopic glass spherules called hiroshimaites recovered from Hiroshima Bay and used electron microscopy, chemical analysis, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction to search for unusual phases.
- They identified a single roughly 10-micrometer grain that is a silicon-rich multicomponent alloy containing iron, chromium, nickel, manganese, molybdenum, silicon, and aluminum with an ordered AlAu4-type crystal structure never before documented.
- The authors infer the particle formed when the 1945 airburst vaporized urban materials into a mixed metallic vapor that condensed and froze in place during ultrafast cooling in the expanding fireball.
- The new alloy appears to be rare in the sampled material and cannot yet be reproducibly made in conventional labs, which limits immediate practical use but points to new research directions in materials science and nuclear forensics.
- This finding joins recent discoveries of exotic phases in Trinity test debris and shows that extreme, short-lived events such as nuclear detonations, meteor impacts, and lightning can produce metastable materials that record transient high-temperature conditions.