Jet engines can run hotter--and cleaner.

• Position: Heat-Resistant Alloys - Brief article

Researchers have made a discovery in materials science that sounds like something from the old Saturday morning cartoon "Super Friends": they have found a way to deactivate "nano twins" to improve the high-temperature properties of superalloys that are used in jet engines. The advance could speed the development of powerful and environmentally friendly turbine engines of all sorts, including those used for transportation and power generation.

The "nano twins" in question are microscopic defects that grow inside alloys and weaken them, allowing them to deform under heat and pressure. In the journal Nature Communications, engineers at Ohio State University, Columbus, describe how tailoring an alloy's composition and then exposing it to high heat and pressure not only can prevent nano twins from forming, it actually can make the alloy stronger.

In tests, the technique, which they...