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Pressure-induced irreversible volume collapse in a high-entropy alloy

Raimundas Sereika1, Caleb M. Knight1, Kallol Chakrabarty1, Andrew D. Pope1, Dean Smith2, and Yogesh K. Vohra1

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Phys. Rev. Materials 9, 073609 – Published 24 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/zsmk-3vnt

Abstract

At ambient conditions, the high-entropy alloy superconductor Re0.6(NbTiZrHf)0.4 exhibits exceptional mechanical properties among high-entropy alloys, with its hexagonal phase achieving nanoindentation hardness of 18.5 GPa. We report on a unique pressure-induced structural transformation from a hexagonal phase to a body-centered cubic (BCC) phase, revealed by synchrotron x-ray diffraction measurements up to 70 GPa. This first-order transition, accompanied by a 6.1% volume collapse, occurs at 44 GPa and results in a BCC structure with random site occupancy by the five constituent elements, which is remarkably retained upon decompression to ambient conditions. The transformation proceeds via a martensiticlike, diffusionless mechanism without elemental segregation, enabled by pressure-induced electronic redistribution and atomic-scale disorder. These findings demonstrate a rare case of metastable phase retention in a chemically complex alloy and offer new insights into structure-stability relationships under pressure.

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Phys. Rev. Materials 9, 073609– Published 24 July, 2025
  • Received 1 April 2025
  • Accepted 1 July 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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