Martensite steel powder used for 3D printing. Inset shows a zoomed-in view of the steel powder. Credit: Raiyan Seede/Texas A&M University College of Engineering For millennia, metallurgists have been meticulously tweaking the ingredients of steel to enhance its properties. As a result, several variants of steel exist today; but one type, called martensitic steel, stands out from its steel cousins as stronger and more cost-effective to produce. Hence, martensitic steels naturally lend themselves to applications in the aerospace, automotive and defense industries, among others, where high-strength, lightweight parts need to be manufactured without boosting the cost. However, for these and...