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Formation and Superconductivity of Single-Phase High-Entropy Alloys with a Tetragonal Structure
journal contribution
posted on 2020-03-31, 19:39 authored by Bin Liu, JiFeng Wu, Yanwei Cui, Qinqing Zhu, Guorui Xiao, Hangdong Wang, Siqi Wu, Guanghan Cao, Zhi RenHigh-entropy
alloys (HEAs) are random solid solutions consisting
of five or more elements arranged in an ordered crystal lattice. So
far, however, nearly all the single-phase HEAs have either a cubic
or hexagonal structure. Here, we report the observation of a single
tetragonal sigma (σ) phase in two series of Ta5[Mo35–xW5+x]Re35Ru20 and [Ta5+yMo35–y]W5Re35Ru20 HEAs up to x = 30 and y = 8, respectively. Meanwhile, these HEAs are discovered to exhibit
a fully gapped bulk superconductivity with a maximum Tc of 6.29 K at x = y = 0. Tc decreases monotonically with
increasing either x or y, which
is mainly due to the weakening of the electron phonon coupling strength.
Despite the variation in Tc, the superconducting
gap remains essentially unchanged for x ≤
20 and y ≤ 8, but decreases in magnitude at
higher x values. Furthermore, it is found that the
stability of single σ-phase HEAs is favored by a high valence
electron concentration and correlates well with the electronegativity
difference of the constituent elements. Our results not only enlarge
the number of possible structural symmetries for HEAs but also help
to establish the criteria for single σ-phase formation in these
multicomponent systems.