Strength can be controlled by edge dislocations in refractory high-entropy alloys

Chanho Lee; Francesco Maresca; Rui Feng; Yi Chou; T. Ungar; Michael Widom; Ke An; Jonathan D. Poplawsky; Yi Chia Chou; Peter K. Liaw; W. A. Curtin

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25807-w

Strength can be controlled by edge dislocations in refractory high-entropy alloys

Chanho Lee, Francesco Maresca, Rui Feng, Yi Chou, T. Ungar, Michael Widom, Ke An, Jonathan D. Poplawsky, Yi Chia Chou, Peter K. Liaw, W. A. Curtin

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

126 Scopus citations

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.

Original language	English
Article number	5474
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25807-w
State	Published - Dec 1 2021

Funding

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’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

Funders	Funder number
European Research Commission
Scientific User Facilities Division
Semiconductor Technology Research
National Science Foundation	DMR-1611180, 1809640
U.S. Department of Energy
Army Research Office	W911NF-19-2-0049, W911NF-13-1-0438
Basic Energy Sciences
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
University of Tennessee
Tennessee Higher Education Commission
Engineering Research Centers	339081
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan	MOST-110-2636-M-009-008, 110-2634-F-009-027
SNS Nordic Forest Research	DE-SC0014506

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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.",

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AU - Feng, Rui

AU - Chou, Yi

AU - Ungar, T.

AU - Widom, Michael

AU - An, Ke

AU - Poplawsky, Jonathan D.

AU - Chou, Yi Chia

AU - Liaw, Peter K.

AU - Curtin, W. A.

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N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

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Strength can be controlled by edge dislocations in refractory high-entropy alloys

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