A 3D-printed material that glows when a force is applied to it could be used to better understand how objects break.
Xuhui Xu at the Kunming University of Science and Technology in China and his colleagues have created a material that glows where a force pushes on it.
Similar materials have been made before from compounds called lanthanides, which contain rare-earth elements like lutetium, but they are normally thin and flat. The researchers wanted to make a material thick enough so it would show …