Few people outside of specialty occupations in chemistry and the electronics industry are familiar with terbium. Nevertheless, in recent years demand for the metal has grown steadily. Coupled with the high cost of preparing the metal, and its natural rarity, have pushed the price per kilogram well into the four digits.

Just as metals typically expand and contract with temperature variations, terbium has the strange ability to do this also with magnetic fields. While the effect is slight, in the presence of a magnet any given volume of the metal will change. This variation can be exploited in various ways starting with, of course, sensors that can detect fluctuations in magnetic fields.

Our own, (unsophisticated) tests have failed to change the volume of one of these cubes to the point that it can be measured with a caliper. For that, however, we’re actually thankful since for all we know if it did we’d have problems with terbium cubes bursting our plastic holders every time they came close to a magnet! We give each of these beautifully finished cubes the white glove treatment - and we’re sure you will too :-)