nanoindentation values were found to be 36.4 GPa and 34.0 GPa for the (002) and perpendicular planes respectively. The hardness values depend on the material purity and composition – the more boron the harder the boride – and the above values are for a Re:B ratio of approximately 1.00:1.85. Rhenium diboride also has a reported bulk modulus of 383 GPa and a shear modulus of 273 GPa. The hardness of rhenium diboride, and most other materials also depends on the load during the test. The above values of about 40 GPa were all measured with an effective load of 0.5–1 N. At such low load, the hardness values are also overestimated for other materials, for example it exceeds 100 GPa for c-BN. Other researchers, while having reproduced the high ReB2 hardness at low load, reported much lower values of 19–17 GPa at a more conventional load of 3–49 N, that makes ReB2 a hard, but not a superhard material. Rhenium diboride exhibits metallic conductivity which increases as temperature decreases and can be explained by a nonzero density of states due to the d and p overlap of rhenium and boron respectively. At this point, it is the only superhard material with metallic behavior. The material also exhibits relatively high thermal stability. Depending on the heating method, it will maintain its mass up to temperatures of 600–800 °C, with any drop being due to loss of absorbed water. A small loss of mass can then be seen at temperatures approaching 1,000 °C. It performs better when a slower heat ramp is utilized. Part of this small drop at around 1,000 °C was explained by the formation of a dull B2O3 coating on the surface as boron is leached out of the solid, which serves as a protective coating, thereby reducing additional boron loss. This can be easily dissolved by methanol to restore the material to it native shiny state. Tungsten borides The discovery of superhard tungsten tetraboride is further evidence for the promising design approach of covalently bonding incompressible transition metals with boron. While WB4 was first synthesized and identified as the highest boride of tungsten in 1966, it was only recognized as an inexpensive superhard material in 2011. Interestingly, lower borides of tungsten such as tungsten diboride are not superhard. Higher boron content leads to higher hardness because of the increased density of short, covalent boron-boron and boron-metal bonds. However,