Tungsten

Tungsten (W) — 10-Year Trends

As of 2026-09-25 · the last 10 years

Tungsten’s research intensity stands at about 96% of its own all-time peak, a level reached within this window in 2024.

Research intensity ran from about 82% of the element's own all-time peak in 2016 to about 96% in 2026 — a net rise with setbacks along the way, and the all-time peak (2024) falls inside this window. Over the same span its share of research attention across all elements rose. Among the 118 elements, tungsten has a larger-than-average research literature.

The number of papers involving the element rose from about 14,236 in 2016 to about 27,580 in 2025 (1.94x). That is slower than the literature as a whole grew over the same years, so the element lost ground in the wider body of research even as its own count rose.

The literature is anchored by three distinct research communities, each representing a different facet of tungsten’s utility. The first is Tungsten Divertor Materials for Fusion Plasma Exposure, which accounts for about 12.9% of the element's recent research. This community focuses on tungsten alloys and pure tungsten under high heat flux and deuterium plasma conditions, examining irradiation effects and mechanical behavior in divertor applications. Tungsten is one strand of a broader community, with about 16% of its papers involving the element. Its share has remained steady over the last two periods. A key paper in this area is "Binder jetting additive manufacturing of a 95W-3.5Ni-1.5Fe tungsten heavy alloy: Enhanced ductility and dynamic deformation mechanisms" (2025), cited about 56 times.

The second major community is Tungsten Dichalcogenide Monolayers in 2D Heterostructures, holding about 12.0% of the element's recent research. Here, the work centers on the synthesis and characterization of monolayer tungsten disulfide and diselenide, often integrated with molybdenum disulfide in wafer-scale thin films. Tungsten is a minor presence in this much larger community, appearing in about 7% of its papers. The share of this community has been steady. A notable recent contribution is "Electronic properties of graphene encapsulated with different two-dimensional atomic crystals" (2025), cited over 340 times.

The third community is Tungsten Electrode Arc Welding and Cladding, representing about 8.7% of the element's recent research. These papers focus on gas tungsten arc welding processes and laser cladding, rather than the general additive manufacturing of steels. Tungsten is a minor presence in this community, with about 3% of its papers involving the element. Its share has remained steady. A significant paper in this field is "Ductilization of 2.6-GPa alloys via short-range ordered interfaces and supranano precipitates" (2025), cited about 99 times.

Overall, the composition of tungsten research has remained stable across the two five-year periods, with the three named communities holding steady shares and the remainder of the literature accounting for about 66.4% of recent work.

The most cited paper in this window, "An extensive study on multiple ETL and HTL layers to design and simulation of high-performance lead-free CsSnCl3-based perovskite solar cells" (2023), is cited over 620 times and belongs to the Perovskite Solar Cells community.

For a deeper look at tungsten's current standing, see the Last 12 Months and Executive Brief reports.