Remarkable toughness of a nanostructured medium-entropy nitride compound
Yujie Chen, Xianghai An, Zhifeng Zhou, Jisheng Ma, Paul Munroe, Sam Zhang, Zonghan Xie
Abstract
) 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.