Superior anticorrosion performance of crystal-amorphous FeMnCoCrNi high-entropy alloy

In order to explore metal material with better corrosion resistance, this work presented a new crystal-amorphous FeMnCoCrNi high entropy alloy (HEA) mode as the mixture of nanocrystalline and amorphous shell fabricated by magnetron sputtering technique. Due to the wide and remarkable Cr-enrichment of amorphous shell, which provides higher driving force and diffusion rate for Cr atom, the crystal-amorphous FeMnCoCrNi HEA exhibits strong passivation behavior because of the formed passive layer about 40 nm thick. The corrosion current density of the crystal-amorphous FeMnCoCrNi HEA is about 0.147 nA•cm⁻² that effectively inhibit pitting corrosion, indicating the superior anticorrosion performance. Then, the crystal-amorphous FeMnCoCrNi HEA presented herein provides a new mode for developing advanced materials with outstanding anticorrosion ability.