Issue 35, 2021

Remarkable toughness of a nanostructured medium-entropy nitride compound

Abstract

A novel medium-entropy nitride (MEN) – CrCoNiN doped with Al and Ti was prepared using magnetron sputtering. The new MEN possesses a single-phase face-centered cubic (FCC) structure, offering a superior combination of hardness (∼21.2 GPa) and fracture toughness (∼4.53 MPa m1/2) that surpasses those of most of the conventional and high-entropy ceramics. The ultrahigh hardness value is attributed to a combined effect of lattice friction, solid solution, nanograin structure and compressive residual stress. The exceptional damage tolerance of the new nitride is underlain by the formation and operation of multiple steady shear bands and amorphization mediated by dislocation accumulations. The discovery of the deformation-induced amorphization and extensive shear banding in the MEN, in conjunction with the mechanistic understanding of the critical roles of high dislocation density and large lattice resistance in dislocation-mediated solid-state amorphization, opens up a new frontier for the development of damage-tolerant MPENs for application under extreme loading conditions.

Graphical abstract: Remarkable toughness of a nanostructured medium-entropy nitride compound

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 May 2021
Accepted
26 Jul 2021
First published
30 Jul 2021

Nanoscale, 2021,13, 15074-15084

Remarkable toughness of a nanostructured medium-entropy nitride compound

Y. Chen, X. An, Z. Zhou, J. Ma, P. Munroe, S. Zhang and Z. Xie, Nanoscale, 2021, 13, 15074 DOI: 10.1039/D1NR03289E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements