Unprecedented non-hysteretic superelasticity of [001]-oriented NiCoFeGa single crystals

Haiyang Chen, Yan Dong Wang, Zhihua Nie, Runguang Li, Daoyong Cong, Wenjun Liu, Feng Ye, Yuzi Liu, Peiyu Cao, Fuyang Tian, Xi Shen, Richeng Yu, Levente Vitos, Minghe Zhang, Shilei Li, Xiaoyi Zhang, Hong Zheng, J. F. Mitchell, Yang Ren

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

111 Scopus citations

Abstract

Superelasticity associated with the martensitic transformation has found a broad range of engineering applications1,2. However, the intrinsic hysteresis3 and temperature sensitivity4 of the first-order phase transformation significantly hinder the usage of smart metallic components in many critical areas. Here, we report a large superelasticity up to 15.2% strain in [001]-oriented NiCoFeGa single crystals, exhibiting non-hysteretic mechanical responses, a small temperature dependence and high-energy-storage capability and cyclic stability over a wide temperature and composition range. In situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction measurements show that the superelasticity is correlated with a stress-induced continuous variation of lattice parameter accompanied by structural fluctuation. Neutron diffraction and electron microscopy observations reveal an unprecedented microstructure consisting of atomic-level entanglement of ordered and disordered crystal structures, which can be manipulated to tune the superelasticity. The discovery of the large elasticity related to the entangled structure paves the way for exploiting elastic strain engineering and development of related functional materials.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)712-718
Number of pages7
JournalNature Materials
Volume19
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2020

Funding

We thank M.-L. Saboungi, D. Price, S. Coppersmith, Y. Zheng, L. Yu and D. Khomskii for fruitful discussions and critical comments. The financial support from the National Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 51831003 and 51527801), the Funds for Creative Research Groups of China (grant no. 51921001), the 111 project (grant no. B170003), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant nos. 06111020 and 06111040) and the fundamental research fund at the State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials (2017Z-09) is acknowledged. L.V. acknowledges the Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2017-06474) and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA 128229). We thank D. Phelan for help in resistivity measurements. The use of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. Work in the Materials Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering Division. The use of the APS and Center for Nanoscale Materials was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science, under contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

FundersFunder number
Funds for Creative Research Groups of China51921001
Materials Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory
Scientific User Facilities Division
fundamental research fund at the State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials2017Z-09
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Science
Basic Energy SciencesDE-AC02-06CH11357
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Hungarian Scientific Research FundOTKA 128229
Vetenskapsrådet2017-06474
National Natural Science Foundation of China-Yunnan Joint Fund51527801, 51831003
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities06111020, 06111040
Higher Education Discipline Innovation ProjectB170003

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