A new strategy to strength-toughen metals: Tailoring disorder

Abstract

Metals have been mankind's most essential materials for thousands of years. In recent years, however, innovation-driven development of major national security strategy and core areas of the national economy is highly impeded by a shortage of advanced higher-strength-toughness metals. One of the main reasons is that metals inherently exhibit the inverted-relationship of strength-toughness. The emergence of two types of disordered metals: amorphous alloys and high entropy alloys, provides a fully-fresh strategy for strength-toughening by tailoring the topological and/or chemical disorder. In this paper, we first briefly review the history of strength-toughening of metals, and summarize the development route-map. We then introduce amorphous alloys and high entropy alloys, as well as some case studies in tailoring disorder to successfully achieve coexisting high strength and high ductility/toughness. Relevant challenges that await further research are summarized in concluding remarks.