Kinetic ways of tailoring phases in high entropy alloys.

The comprehensive performance of high entropy alloys (HEAs) depends on the phase selection significantly. However, up to now, investigations of the phase selection in HEAs mainly focused on the thermodynamic equilibrium phase, while kinetic ways of tailoring the phases in HEAs are seldom considered. In HEAs, the kinetics of sluggish diffusion and the numerous possible phases make the kinetics of phase transformation more complex and intriguing. Here, the kinetic effect in CoCrFeNiTi HEAs was investigated to reveal the possibility of controlling phase selection via kinetic ways for HEAs. The σ, γ' and R phases in the CoCrFeNiTi HEA can be controlled under different cooling rate both in solidification and solid transformation. The theoretical analyses revealed the kinetic effect on phase selection. The method proposed here, tailoring the phases with different kinetic ways, could be used to prepare promising HEAs with very rich composition design.