The emergence of high-entropy materials (HEMs) affords opportunities to harmonize precision and disorder, which has been inaccessible for conventional diluted alloys or solid solutions. A multitude of advantageous functional properties originating from the four core effects — high-entropy, severe-lattice-distortion, sluggish-diffusion and cocktail effects — have been discovered. The entropy stabilization mechanism, however, remains elusive and sometimes inconsistent, mainly owing to the difficulty in controllable, versatile and predictive of different types of HEMs.
Collaborating with Prof. Sheng Dai from ORNL and University of Tennessee, Knoxville, we review the developments of synthesis strategies, techniques and rationales towards HEMs with complex elemental compositions, engineered microstructures and tailored atomic configurations. Case studies of formation pathways and stabilization mechanisms of different types of HEMs reveal insightful synthesis guidelines. Future efforts in precision nanosynthesis, probing and leveraging metastability and in-depth understanding of entropy stabilization are anticipated to reveal the underlying mechanism for materials discovery and design.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44160-024-00690-7
SJTU News: https://news.sjtu.edu.cn/jdzh/20241206/205163.html
