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Combinatorial metallurgical synthesis and processing of high-entropy alloys

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Abstract

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) with multiple principal elements open up a practically infinite space for designing novel materials. Probing this huge material universe requires the use of combinatorial and high-throughput synthesis and processing methods. Here, we present and discuss four different combinatorial experimental methods that have been used to accelerate the development of novel HEAs, namely, rapid alloy prototy**, diffusion-multiples, laser additive manufacturing, and combinatorial co-deposition of thin-film materials libraries. While the first three approaches are bulk methods which allow for downstream processing and microstructure adaptation, the latter technique is a thin-film method capable of efficiently synthesizing wider ranges of composition and using high-throughput measurement techniques to characterize their structure and properties. Additional coupling of these high-throughput experimental methodologies with theoretical guidance regarding specific target features such as phase (meta)stability allows for effective screening of novel HEAs with beneficial property profiles.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is financially supported by the European Research Council under the EU’s 7th Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement 290998. H. Soren-Stein and S. Thienhaus are gratefully acknowledged for development and realization, respectively, of multidimensional graphing for high-entropy alloy data visualizations.

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  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, Düsseldorf, 40237, Germany

    Zhiming Li, Hauke Springer & Dierk Raabe

  2. Institute for Materials, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, 44780, Germany

    Alfred Ludwig & Alan Savan

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  1. Zhiming Li
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  2. Alfred Ludwig
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  4. Hauke Springer
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Correspondence to Zhiming Li or Dierk Raabe.

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Li, Z., Ludwig, A., Savan, A. et al. Combinatorial metallurgical synthesis and processing of high-entropy alloys. Journal of Materials Research 33, 3156–3169 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2018.214

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