A century-old innovation remains central to the development of advanced PGM materials

Whether designing for semiconductor applications, a jet engine component or a platinum wedding ring, a reliable way to measure how well a material resists deformation and wear is essential. One of the most widely used methods for doing this is the Vickers test, developed in 1921 by engineers at former British engineering company Vickers Ltd.
Unlike earlier hardness tests, which were limited to specific material types, the Vickers method was designed to be universal. It works by pressing a pyramid-shaped diamond indenter into a material under a known force and measuring the size of the resulting indentation. The smaller the indentation, the harder the material. The result is expressed in Vickers Hardness (HV), a unit now used worldwide across multiple industries.
The significance of the Vickers scale lies in its ability to compare vastly different materials using a standardised method. For platinum group metals (PGMs), this is particularly important because in their pure state, they can lack the hardness required for demanding industrial applications. Platinum, for example, has an HV value of 55 to 60 (compared to 24 karat gold at 25-30 HV) while carbon in the form of diamond has the highest HV value of any elemental material at 10,000 HV.   Alloying, the process of combining materials to enhance performance, is therefore an important way of utilising PGMs.