Complex concentrated alloys and chemical short-range ordering

Abstract

Complex concentrated alloys (CCAs) are materials comprising three or more elements in similar proportions and possessing structural but no chemical long-range order. Fascination with CCAs has grown over the last 20 years and to date, CCAs have opened a new materials design paradigm and horizon for discovery of materials to meet the demands of applications in aggressive environments. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms controlling their response, however, is challenging due to the chemical and structural variations that wildly fluctuate over fine atomic and nanoscales. This issue focuses on the experimental, computational, and theoretical investigations that aim to uncover phenomena and processes determining the structure, kinetics, mechanics, or deformation mechanisms in CCAs at the atomic scale. At the atomic scale at which they operate, chemical short-range ordering can be influential. This issue further addresses the capabilities, as well as the debatable need, to characterize, predict, and relate short-range ordering to material performance. Collectively, the articles in this issue highlight the insights, understanding, and experimental and computational tools that attempt to create property-tunable CCAs “from the atom up” by treating short-range ordering and engineering atomic-scale mechanisms.