Accelerated discovery of nanostructured high-entropy and multicomponent alloys via high-throughput strategies

Abstract

Nanostructured materials (NsMs) exhibit many interesting and useful properties; yet they are generally unstable at elevated temperatures limiting their process methods and applications. Many emerging alloys, especially high-entropy alloys (HEAs) and related multicomponent alloys, are reported to offer enhanced thermal stability and mechanical strength. The identification of such multicomponent alloys out of a vast compositional space, however, is a daunting task – many are predominantly developed through sequential and time-consuming trial-and-error approaches. Thus, high-throughput strategies are urgently needed to accelerate the discovery of useful nanostructured HEAs (Ns-HEAs). As the fields of Ns-HEAs and high-throughput methods are developing rapidly, an avenue of research is to be exploited. This review focuses on the literature on the high-throughput fabrication, characterization, and testing of the structures, compositions, mechanical properties, and thermal stabilities of a wide range of Ns-HEAs reported over the past two decades. This article also includes recent high-throughput methods that could be potentially used for Ns-HEAs and HEA systems that could potentially be fabricated into Ns-HEAs. Moreover, we review various high-throughput data analysis methods, including theoretical screening, simulation, and machine learning. The article concludes with progress, challenges, and opportunities about the future directions in the accelerated discovery of Ns-HEAs via high-throughput methodologies.