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Clarifying the four core effects of high-entropy materials

Nature Reviews Chemistry (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

High-entropy materials emerged as a field of research in 2004, when the first research on high-entropy alloys was published. The scope was soon expanded from high-entropy alloys to medium-entropy alloys, as well as to ceramics, polymers and composite materials. A fundamental understanding on high-entropy materials was proposed in 2006 by the ‘four core effects’ — high-entropy, severe-lattice-distortion, sluggish-diffusion and cocktail effects — which are often used to describe and explain the mechanisms of various peculiar phenomena associated with high-entropy materials. Throughout the years, the effects have been examined rigorously, and their validity has been affirmed. This Perspective discusses the fundamental understanding of the four core effects in high-entropy materials and gives further insights to strengthen the understanding for these effects. All these clarifications are believed to be helpful in understanding low-to-high-entropy materials as well as to aid the design of materials when studying new compositions or pursuing their use in applications.

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Fig. 1: Concept of high-entropy alloys and the four core effects.
Fig. 2: Phase selection criteria.
Fig. 3: Severe lattice distortion and its effects on various properties.
Fig. 4: Factors causing sluggish diffusion.
Fig. 5: The composite properties of HEAs obtained by the cocktail effect.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. High Entropy Materials Center and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Wei-Lin Hsu, Che-Wei Tsai, An-Chou Yeh & Jien-Wei Yeh

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  1. Wei-Lin Hsu
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  2. Che-Wei Tsai
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  4. Jien-Wei Yeh
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W.L.H. drafted the original article and figures and conducted the literature review. All authors conceived the structure and contents, discussed the concepts and insights for the article, and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jien-Wei Yeh.

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Hsu, WL., Tsai, CW., Yeh, AC. et al. Clarifying the four core effects of high-entropy materials. Nat Rev Chem (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-024-00602-5

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