Tungsten: derived from the Swedish words TUNG (English: heavy) and STEN (English: stone) due to its density. The other important tungsten ore, was discovered in an iron mine in Sweden in 1750. With a tensile strength of 1,510 megapascals, we now know tungsten as the strongest naturally occurring metal on Earth. Nexteck Technology provides tungsten targets and tungsten evaporation materials.

Interestingly,  despite tungsten’s strength, most of civilization has lived without any practical use of the metal. That’s because tungsten wasn’t officially discovered until the 18th century. Like all elements with an atomic number higher than iron, tungsten cannot be created by nuclear fusion in stars like our sun.

Instead, tungsten is thought to be formed from the explosions of massive stars. Each supernova explosion has so much energy, that these newly created elements are jettisoned at incredible speeds of 30,000 km/s, or 10% of the speed of light – and that’s how they get dispersed throughout the universe. Supernova explosions don’t happen often – as a result, in every 1,000,000 grams of the Earth’s crust, there are only 1.25 grams of tungsten.

The metal was discovered by Spanish nobleman Juan José D′Elhuyar, who eventually synthesized tungsten from both wolframite and scheelite – showing they were both minerals from the same new element. Tungsten can be used as filaments in lamps and lightbulbs typically. Electron gun filament is also can be founded in Nexteck Technology Limited.