@article{fb450903c7a548baa4f1af2111c9626d,
title = "Strength can be controlled by edge dislocations in refractory high-entropy alloys",
abstract = "Energy efficiency is motivating the search for new high-temperature (high-T) metals. Some new body-centered-cubic (BCC) random multicomponent “high-entropy alloys (HEAs)” based on refractory elements (Cr-Mo-Nb-Ta-V-W-Hf-Ti-Zr) possess exceptional strengths at high temperatures but the physical origins of this outstanding behavior are not known. Here we show, using integrated in-situ neutron-diffraction (ND), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and recent theory, that the high strength and strength retention of a NbTaTiV alloy and a high-strength/low-density CrMoNbV alloy are attributable to edge dislocations. This finding is surprising because plastic flows in BCC elemental metals and dilute alloys are generally controlled by screw dislocations. We use the insight and theory to perform a computationally-guided search over 107 BCC HEAs and identify over 106 possible ultra-strong high-T alloy compositions for future exploration.",
author = "Chanho Lee and Francesco Maresca and Rui Feng and Yi Chou and T. Ungar and Michael Widom and Ke An and Poplawsky, {Jonathan D.} and Chou, {Yi Chia} and Liaw, {Peter K.} and Curtin, {W. A.}",
note = "Funding Information: The authors thank Michael C. Gao for help in the design of the single-phase refractory HEAs using the CALculation of PHAse Diagram (CALPHAD) and Gian Song and Hahn Choo for help with the analysis of the in-situ neutron diffraction data. The authors thank Dr. Binglun Yin for providing the DFT computation of the O and N misfit strains in Nb, Ta, and V. The authors thank Mr. Xuesong Fan and Mr. Hugh Shortt for their experimental efforts during the revision processes. C.L., R.F., and P.K.L. thank the U.S. Army Research Office for the support of the present work through projects, W911NF-13-1-0438 and W911NF-19-2-0049. P.K.L. thanks the National Science Foundation for the support of the present work through projects, DMR-1611180 and 1809640. C.L. acknowledges the partial support from the Center of Materials Processing, a Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) Center of Excellence located at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. F.M. and W.A.C. acknowledge the partial support for the current work from the European Research Commission Advanced Grant, “Predictive Computational Metallurgy”, ERC Grant agreement No. 339081 - PreCoMet. F.M. and W.A.C. also thank Prof. H. Sheng and Prof. E. Ma for sharing their Nb-O interatomic potential. Y.C.C. acknowledges the support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (MOST) under Grant No. MOST-110-2636-M-009-008. All authors acknowledge the core facility support at NCTU from MOST. The present work was partially supported by the “Center for the Semiconductor Technology Research” from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan and supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under Grant No. MOST 110-2634-F-009-027. Research at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), was partially sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). R.F. thanks for the support from the Materials and Engineering Initiative at SNS, ORNL. The atom probe tomography (APT) experiments were performed at ORNL{\textquoteright}s Center for the Nanophase Materials Science (CNMS), which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. Thermodynamic stability modeling was supported by the DOE under grant DE-SC0014506 Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s).",
year = "2021",
month = dec,
doi = "10.1038/s41467-021-25807-w",
language = "English",
volume = "12",
journal = "Nature Communications",
issn = "2041-1723",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "1",
}