I'm changing my main instance to @evn because I think the tildeverse (https://tildeverse.org/) is neat. You may see a follow request from my account there.

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) gems are one of the most in-demand materials for researching the properties of graphene. But there's basically no market for commercial hBN crystals because there's two old guys in Japan that make really high quality hBN that they send around the world for free. They do it in the basement of a research institute with a giant hydraulic press while continually blasting Queen albums on the stereo.
Because of their vital contribution to the field they have together co-authored 52 papers in Science and Nature, making them the most prolific researchers in these journals over the past 8 years.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02472-0