> According to the team, phosphorus allows the iron and nickel atoms to move faster, enabling them to form the necessary ordered stacking without waiting for millions of years. They were able to accelerate tetrataenite formation by between 11 and 15 orders of magnitude by mixing iron, nickel, and phosphorus in the right quantities. This meant the material was able to form over a few seconds in a simple casting.

> “What was so astonishing was that no special treatment was needed. We just melted the alloy, poured it into a mold, and we had tetrataenite,” says Greer. “The previous view in the field was that you couldn’t get tetrataenite unless you did something extreme, because otherwise, you’d have to wait millions of years for it to form. This result represents a total change in how we think about this material.”