Search operators
Search terms can contain any letters or numbers, and text search is not case-sensitive. Although most punctuation and special characters are ignored when you search, you can include the following search operators.
| Operator | Search term | Result |
|---|---|---|
| AND |
|
Will find all materials containing both of the terms Note: AND is the
default search operator. |
| OR | germanium OR silicon | Will find materials containing any of the terms |
| NOT | germanium NOT silicon | will find materials containing the term 'germanium' but not the term 'silicon' |
| ( ) | iron AND (ore OR cast) | Used with Boolean operators to group multiple search terms. Parentheses cannot be empty. Will find materials containing the word 'iron' and one or both of 'ore' or 'cast'. |
| " " | "steel alloy" | Matches all of the search terms between the quotes, in the same
positions relative to each other. Will find materials containing the words
'steel' and 'alloy', next to each other and in that order. Results for the
phrase "alloy steel" and "steel alloy" will not be the same. Note: Use of a
phrase search does not override whitespacing of special characters - these
will still be ignored. |
| * Wildcard Search | poly* | Matches one or more characters. Will find materials containing the terms 'polymer', 'polyimide', 'polyurethane', 'polypropylene', 'polycarbonate' |
| ? Wildcard Search | oxid? | Matches a single character. Will find materials containing 'oxide' but not 'oxides' or 'oxidized' |
Note: Search operators are case sensitive.