Engineering liquid-liquid interfaces for high-entropy alloy synthesis

Abstract

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) with various promising applications have attracted significant interest. However, alloying immiscible metal elements while controlling the morphology and crystallinity remains extremely challenging. We report a general route, by engineering liquid-liquid interfaces, for the synthesis of HEAs with controlled crystallinity (single crystal, mesocrystal, polycrystal, amorphous), morphology (0-dimension, 2-dimension, 3-dimension), and high composition diversity (20 elements) under mild conditions (room temperature to 80 degrees celsius). As reactions can be spatially confined at the liquid-liquid interface, it provides an opportunity to control the kinetics and reduce the alloying temperature. Our real-time observation of the alloying of HEAs reveals hydrogen-enhanced mixing and isothermal solidification that kinetically traps the mixing states due to composition changes. The concept of liquid-liquid interface engineering can be applied to obtain other high-entropy compounds.