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Design, Preparation, and Microstructural Characterization of High Entropy Materials

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Advanced Materials Characterization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 October 2025 | Viewed by 2366

Special Issue Editor

1. School of Science, Xi’an University of Posts & Telecommunications, Xi’an 710121, China
2. School of Physical Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Interests: photovoltaic functional thin film materials; synthesis and characterization of gallium oxide films; thermal sensitive films; high entropy oxide films
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

High-entropy materials (high-entropy alloy, high-entropy oxide, high-entropy...) have attracted tremendous attention and have shown promise regarding exciting applications which have previously been unfathomable to achieve. Owing to their short-range disorder and long-range order nature, these materials maintain a high configuration entropy, which can still sustain phase stability, allowing various adjustment in the mechanical, electrical, optical, magnetic, and catalytic performances of the materials.

Previous research on high-entropy materials has focused on bulk samples. However, as the miniaturization of devices has evolved, there is a need to understand this multiple alloy system at the micro and nano levels. The development of high-entropy materials is as of now a debated issue that can be generally divided into two primary classes: coatings with bulk and thin films. Some of the major issues in bulk alloy-based material is the prevalence of brittle fracture upon deformation that leads to catastrophic fracture, which typically originates from a single, major shear band. The scientific community is also focusing on the following fields: 1) developing novel high-entropy alloy thin films with ideal strength and ductility in extreme conditions, such as cryogenic or acid environments; 2) developing novel high-entropy oxide thin films with various crystal structures, such as rocksalt, spinel, perovskite, fluorite, etc.; 3) developing a comprehensive prediction and screening methodology supported by machine learning technologies.

This Special Issue aims to bring together research papers, short communications, and review articles focused on the novel synthesis, device designs, fabrication, advanced characterization, and artificial intelligence design of various high-entropy materials in order to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art within this field

Dr. Wei Ren
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • high-entropy alloy
  • high-entropy oxide
  • high-entropy nitride
  • high-entropy carbide

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 3306 KiB  
Article
Determination of the Entire Existence Composition Range of CrMnFeCoNi High-Entropy Alloys Using Sintered Diffusion Multiple Method
by Ryuta Yurishima, Ayako Ikeda and Teruyuki Ikeda
Materials 2025, 18(2), 295; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18020295 - 10 Jan 2025
Viewed by 956
Abstract
The sintered diffusion multiple (SDM) method, which has been developed in our research group, has been applied to determine the entire composition range of the CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy stereoscopically and continuously over nearly the entire range. The samples were prepared by sintering mixed [...] Read more.
The sintered diffusion multiple (SDM) method, which has been developed in our research group, has been applied to determine the entire composition range of the CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy stereoscopically and continuously over nearly the entire range. The samples were prepared by sintering mixed elemental powders and were annealed at 970 °C or 800 °C. Several hundreds of thousands of points were analyzed at random within the samples for chemical compositions using electron probe microanalysis. With the assumption that ideally, only chemical compositions of existing phases at the temperature of annealing are obtained, the compositional data thus obtained were analyzed to estimate the phase boundaries of the high-entropy phase, including the Cantor alloy composition, assuming local equilibrium within the samples. The analysis includes the determination of point densities and their slopes in the space of chemical composition. The results are shown in the tetrahedral compositional space, with vertices for the Cr, Mn, and Fe atomic fractions and the sum of the Co and Ni fractions. One of the features found in this work is that the high-entropy phase exhibits a wide compositional range in the Fe-CrMnCoNi direction. The estimated phase boundary compositions are found to be in good agreement, within an error range 3 at.%, with those obtained using samples prepared by the conventional method, where the samples with uniform compositions are equilibrated by annealing, and the compositions of their existing phases are analyzed using EPMA. Thus, the sintered diffusion multiple method is effective in providing an overview of the quinary phase diagrams. Full article
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9 pages, 3702 KiB  
Article
Synthesis of β-Ga2O3:Mg Thin Films by Electron Beam Evaporation and Postannealing
by Weitao Fan, Sairui Li, Wei Ren, Yanhan Yang, Yixuan Li, Guanghui Liu and Weili Wang
Materials 2024, 17(19), 4931; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17194931 - 9 Oct 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1114
Abstract
Doping divalent metal cations into Ga2O3 films plays a key role in adjusting the conductive behavior of the film. N-type high-resistivity β-Ga2O3:Mg films were prepared using electron beam evaporation and subsequent postannealing processing. Various characterization [...] Read more.
Doping divalent metal cations into Ga2O3 films plays a key role in adjusting the conductive behavior of the film. N-type high-resistivity β-Ga2O3:Mg films were prepared using electron beam evaporation and subsequent postannealing processing. Various characterization methods (X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, photoluminescence, etc.) revealed that the Mg content plays an important role in affecting the film quality. Specifically, when the Mg content in the film is 3.6%, the S2 film’s resistivity, carrier content, and carrier mobility are 59655.5 Ω·cm, 1.95 × 1014 cm3/C, and 0.53682 cm2/Vs. Also, the film exhibits a smoother surface, more refined grains, and higher self-trapped exciton emission efficiency. The Mg cation mainly substitutes the Ga+ cation at a tetrahedral site, acting as a trap for self-trapped holes. Full article
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