Chemical inhomogeneities in high-entropy alloys help mitigate the strength-ductility trade-off

Metallurgists have long been accustomed to a trade-off between yield strength and tensile ductility. Extending previously known strain-hardening mechanisms, the emerging multi-principal-element alloys (MPEAs) offer additional help in promoting the strength-ductility synergy, towards gigapascal yield strength simultaneously with pure-metal-like tensile ductility. The highly concentrated chemical make-up in these “high-entropy” alloys (HEAs) adds, at ultrafine spatial scale from sub-nanometer to tens of nanometers, inherent chemical inhomogeneities in local composition and local chemical order (LCO). These institute a “nano-cocktail” environment that exerts extra dragging forces, rendering a much wavier motion of dislocation lines (in stick–slip mode) different from dilute solutions. The variable fault energy landscape also makes the dislocation movement sluggish, increasing their chances to hit one another and react to increase entanglement. The accumulation of dislocations (plus faults) dynamically stores obstacles against ensuing dislocation motion to sustain an adequate strain-hardening rate at high flow stresses, delaying plastic instability to enable large (uniform) elongation. The successes summarized advocate MPEAs as an effective recipe towards ultrahigh strength at little expense of tensile ductility. The insight gained also answers the question as to what new mechanical behavior the HEAs have to offer, beyond what has been well documented for traditional metals and solid solutions.