Overcoming strength-toughness trade-off in a eutectic high entropy alloy by optimizing chemical and microstructural heterogeneities

Zhaoqi Chen; Wenqing Zhu; Hang Wang; Quanfeng He; Qihong Fang; Xiaodi Liu; Jia Li; Yong Yang

doi:10.1038/s43246-024-00450-2

Author(s)

Wenqing Zhu
Qihong Fang
Xiaodi Liu
Jia Li

Related Research Unit(s)

Detail(s)

Original language	English
Article number	12
Journal / Publication	Communications Materials
Volume	5
Online published	3 Feb 2024
Publication status	Published - 2024

Link(s)

DOI	DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-024-00450-2 Final Published version
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Attachment(s)	Documents 221739905.pdf Final Published version, 8.77 MB, PDF Publisher's Copyright Statement This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Link to Scopus	https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85184176648&origin=recordpage
Permanent Link	https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/publications/publication(78067559-e5f5-496f-9074-7560198ede1c).html

Abstract

The well-known strength-toughness trade-off has long been an obstacle in the pursuit of advanced structural alloys. Here, we develop a eutectic high entropy alloy that effectively overcomes this limitation. Our alloy is composed of face-centered cubic and body-centered cubic crystalline phases, and demonstrates attractive mechanical properties by harnessing microstructural hybridization and a strain-induced phase transition between phases. Unlike conventional eutectic alloys, the compositionally complexity of our alloy allows control of its microstructural and chemical heterogeneities across multiple length scales, ranging from atomic- and nano-scales to meso-scales. Optimizing these microstructural and chemical heterogeneities within our alloy enables high strength and ductility because of enhanced fracture resistance, outperforming alternative high and medium entropy alloys with similar compositions and microstructures.

© The Author(s) 2024