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Subfield · Materials Science

Metals and Alloys research

Metals and Alloys is a subfield of Materials Science. Science Explorer counts 40k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: an alloy designation system widely accepted in North America.

Research works
40k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
3.9k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
1
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+10%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
53% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Metals and Alloys

Which countries lead Metals and Alloys research?

On research quality in 2022-now, China, the United States and Germany rank highest in Metals and Alloys. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (3.1k and 603 works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 China #1 all time 1.21× citation excellence · 1.02× journals · 100% breadth 11.8% top 10% · 2.6k works
  2. 2 United States #2 all time 0.72× citation excellence · 1.60× journals · 100% breadth 7.5% top 10% · 531 works
  3. 3 Germany #4 all time 0.77× citation excellence · 1.41× journals · 100% breadth 7.0% top 10% · 209 works
  4. 4 Japan #9 all time 0.72× citation excellence · 0.90× journals · 100% breadth 6.7% top 10% · 358 works
  5. 5 South Korea #8 all time 0.92× citation excellence · 0.90× journals · 100% breadth 8.1% top 10% · 211 works
  6. 6 India #10 all time 0.89× citation excellence · 0.44× journals · 100% breadth 7.7% top 10% · 482 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 6 countries ranked in Metals and Alloys. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Metals and Alloys

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 3.1k works
  2. 2 United States 603 works
  3. 3 India 555 works
  4. 4 Japan 408 works
  5. 5 South Korea 240 works
  6. 6 Germany 237 works
  7. 7 France 210 works
  8. 8 Russia 188 works
  9. 9 United Kingdom 187 works
  10. 10 Brazil 181 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 52.6%United States: 10.2%India: 9.4%Japan: 6.9%6 others listed: 21.0%53%largest
China3,123 · 52.6%United States603 · 10.2%India555 · 9.4%Japan408 · 6.9%6 others listed1,243 · 21.0%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Metals and Alloys research?

University of Science and Technology Beijing (China) ranks first in Metals and Alloys on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Chinese Academy of Sciences and Northeastern University.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 University of Science and Technology Beijing China · Beijing · #2 all time 17.7% top 10% · 205 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of Sciences China · Beijing · #1 all time 11.8% top 10% · 132 works
  3. 3 Northeastern University China · Shenyang · #10 all time 15.1% top 10% · 100 works
  4. 4 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique France · Paris · #4 all time 9.7% top 10% · 68 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 4 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Metals and Alloys.

Top 100 Metals and Alloys institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 University of Science and Technology BeijingChina 232 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 160 works
  3. 3 Northeastern UniversityChina 118 works
  4. 4 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 77 works
  5. 5 China National Petroleum Corporation (China)China 64 works
  6. 6 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 55 works
  7. 7 Southwest Petroleum UniversityChina 54 works
  8. 8 China University of Petroleum, East ChinaChina 52 works
  9. 9 Shanghai UniversityChina 47 works
  10. 10 Tohoku UniversityJapan 47 works

Who are the leading researchers in Metals and Alloys?

Counting only their work in Metals and Alloys, Xiaogang Li, Dierk Raabe and Yufeng Frank Cheng have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Xiaogang Li China · #601,396 worldwide overall 55.8 of 200 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Dierk Raabe Germany · #21,795 worldwide overall 31.1 of 66 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Yufeng Frank Cheng Canada · #89,138 worldwide overall 33.6 of 79 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Fuhui Wang China · #123,758 worldwide overall 26.8 of 78 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Ian M. Robertson United States · #138,067 worldwide overall 18.7 of 36 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Dake Xu China · #8,545 worldwide overall 18.3 of 34 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Dirk Ponge Germany · #29,428 worldwide overall 14.7 of 31 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Xuequn Cheng China · #92,914 worldwide overall 19.2 of 43 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Petros Sofronis United States · #143,096 worldwide overall 15.2 of 38 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Ime Bassey B. Obot Saudi Arabia · #197,169 worldwide overall 27.6 of 42 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Metals and Alloys alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 124,895 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Metals and Alloys researchers

What are the most cited papers in Metals and Alloys?

The most cited paper in Metals and Alloys is "THE USE OF LEAD CITRATE AT HIGH pH AS AN ELECTRON-OPAQUE STAIN IN ELECTRON MICROSCOPY" (Edward S. Reynolds, 1963), with 25,107 citations. Next come "Hall–Petch relation and boundary strengthening" (3,809) and "Semiempirical, Quantum Mechanical Calculation of Hydrogen Embrittlement in Metals" (2,705).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 THE USE OF LEAD CITRATE AT HIGH pH AS AN ELECTRON-OPAQUE STAIN IN ELECTRON MICROSCOPY Edward S. Reynolds · The Journal of Cell Biology Open access Apr 1963 25,107
2 Hall–Petch relation and boundary strengthening Niels Hansen · Scripta Materialia 4 Aug 2004 3,809
3 Semiempirical, Quantum Mechanical Calculation of Hydrogen Embrittlement in Metals Murray S. Daw, Michael I. Baskes · Physical Review Letters 25 Apr 1983 2,705
4 An overview on the use of titanium in the aerospace industry Rodney R. Boyer · Materials Science and Engineering A Aug 1996 2,447
5 Orientation gradients and geometrically necessary dislocations in ultrafine grained dual-phase steels studied by 2D and 3D EBSD Marion Calcagnotto, Dirk Ponge, Eralp Demir et al. · Materials Science and Engineering A 15 Jan 2010 2,330
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Metals and Alloys research done?

The largest centres of Metals and Alloys research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Shenyang (China) and Xi'an (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Kālpākkam, Leoben and Anshan.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 763 works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 199 works
  3. 3 ShenyangChina 156 works
  4. 4 Xi'anChina 152 works
  5. 5 ChengduChina 132 works
  6. 6 TokyoJapan 126 works
  7. 7 QingdaoChina 110 works
  8. 8 WuhanChina 110 works
  9. 9 NanjingChina 93 works
  10. 10 TianjinChina 80 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. KālpākkamIN · 20.8 works66×
  2. LeobenAT · 20.2 works24×
  3. AnshanCN · 26.7 works21×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Metals and Alloys than the world average.

See Metals and Alloys on the map

Metals and Alloys research by country

The best places for Metals and Alloys research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Metals and Alloys?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Tianjin University and Northeastern University score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 18.59%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Tianjin UniversityUniversity of Scienc…Northeastern Univers…Shanghai Jiao Tong U…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of Science and Technology BeijingChina 83.4#1 (#2)16.7%42.6×232 +31.4%
2Tianjin UniversityChina 44.8- (#5)18.8%5.4×46 +1.8%
3Northeastern UniversityChina 44.3#3 (#10)15.6%18.8×118 +37.1%
4Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 40.1- (#6)13.0%2.3×46 +25.0%
5Southwest Forestry UniversityChina 31.6-37.6%13.1×10 +144.5%
6University of ManchesterUnited Kingdom 28.5- (#9)17.0%2.5×15 -51.3%
7Université Ibn-TofailMorocco 28.5-27.5%13.5×19 +8.6%
8Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityChina 28.3- (#12)9.8%3.3×40 +19.0%
9China University of Petroleum, East ChinaChina 28.1-18.3%15.8×52 +71.5%
10Harbin Institute of TechnologyChina 27.7- (#11)11.6%3.4×39 +1.4%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), citation excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in Metals and Alloys, country by country

Is Metals and Alloys research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 10% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Hydrogen embrittlement and corrosion behaviors in metals.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Metals and Alloys as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.031% in 2024.

still counting0.025%0.050%0.075%Metals and Alloys0.031% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Metals and Alloys over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Metals and Alloys9.9% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

What does Metals and Alloys include?

Share who leads Metals and Alloys

Who leads Metals and Alloys, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead Metals and Alloys, for a post or a slide.

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1200 × 630 PNG, sized for social posts, drawn from the latest snapshot.

The leading institutions' badges4Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

Discussion

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