Nanostructured metals are usually strong because the ultrahigh density of internal boundaries restricts the mean free path of dislocations. Usually, they are also more brittle because of their ...diminished work-hardening ability. Nanotwinned materials, with coherent interfaces of mirror symmetry, can overcome this inherent trade-off. We show a bulk nanostructuring method that produces a multiscale, hierarchical twin architecture in a hexagonal closed-packed, solute-free, and coarse-grained titanium (Ti), with a substantial enhancement of tensile strength and ductility. Pure Ti achieved an ultimate tensile strength of almost 2 gigapascals and a true failure strain close to 100% at 77 kelvin. The multiscale twin structures are thermally stable up to 873 kelvin, which is above the critical temperature for many applications in extreme environments. Our results demonstrate a practical route to achieve attractive mechanical properties in Ti without involving exotic and often expensive alloying elements.
Traditional metallic alloys are mixtures of elements in which the atoms of minority species tend to be distributed randomly if they are below their solubility limit, or to form secondary phases if ...they are above it. The concept of multiple-principal-element alloys has recently expanded this view, as these materials are single-phase solid solutions of generally equiatomic mixtures of metallic elements. This group of materials has received much interest owing to their enhanced mechanical properties
. They are usually called medium-entropy alloys in ternary systems and high-entropy alloys in quaternary or quinary systems, alluding to their high degree of configurational entropy. However, the question has remained as to how random these solid solutions actually are, with the influence of short-range order being suggested in computational simulations but not seen experimentally
. Here we report the observation, using energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy, of structural features attributable to short-range order in the CrCoNi medium-entropy alloy. Increasing amounts of such order give rise to both higher stacking-fault energy and hardness. These findings suggest that the degree of local ordering at the nanometre scale can be tailored through thermomechanical processing, providing a new avenue for tuning the mechanical properties of medium- and high-entropy alloys.
A range of modern applications require large and tunable dielectric, piezoelectric or pyroelectric response of ferroelectrics. Such effects are intimately connected to the nature of polarization and ...how it responds to externally applied stimuli. Ferroelectric susceptibilities are, in general, strongly temperature dependent, diminishing rapidly as one transitions away from the ferroelectric phase transition (T
). In turn, researchers seek new routes to manipulate polarization to simultaneously enhance susceptibilities and broaden operational temperature ranges. Here, we demonstrate such a capability by creating composition and strain gradients in Ba
Sr
TiO
films which result in spatial polarization gradients as large as 35 μC cm
across a 150 nm thick film. These polarization gradients allow for large dielectric permittivity with low loss (ɛ
≈775, tan δ<0.05), negligible temperature-dependence (13% deviation over 500 °C) and high-dielectric tunability (greater than 70% across a 300 °C range). The role of space charges in stabilizing polarization gradients is also discussed.
It has been known for decades that the application of pulsed direct current can significantly enhance the formability of metals. However, the detailed mechanisms of this effect have been difficult to ...separate from simple Joule heating. Here, we study the electroplastic deformation of Ti-Al (7 at.% Al), an alloy that is uniquely suited for uncoupling this behaviour because, contrary to most metals, it has inherently lower ductility at higher temperature. We find that during mechanical deformation, electropulsing enhances cross-slip, producing a wavy dislocation morphology, and enhances twinning, which is similar to what occurs during cryogenic deformation. As a consequence, dislocations are prevented from localizing into planar slip bands that would lead to the early failure of the alloy under tension. Our results demonstrate that this macroscopic electroplastic behaviour originates from defect-level microstructural reconfiguration that cannot be rationalized by simple Joule heating.
In situ nanomechanical testing provides critical insight into the fundamental processes that lead to deformation phenomena in materials. Often, in situ tests are performed in relevant conditions such ...as high or low temperatures, tribological contact, gas environments, or under radiation exposure. Modern diffraction and imaging methods of materials under load provide high spatial resolution and enable extraction of quantitative mechanical data from local microstructure components or nano-sized objects. The articles in this issue cover recent advances in different types of in situ nanomechanical testing methods, spanning from dedicated nanomechanical testing platforms and microelectromechanical systems devices to deformation analyses via in situ diffraction and imaging methods. This includes scanning electron microscopy, advanced scanning transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction, x-ray diffraction, and synchrotron techniques. Emerging areas such as in situ tribology enable novel insights into the origin of deformation mechanisms, while the evolution of microelectromechanical systems for controlled in situ testing provide opportunities for advanced control and loading strategies. Discussion on the current state of the art for in situ nanomechanical testing and future opportunities in imaging, strain sensing, and testing environments are also addressed.
The application of strain to semiconductors allows for controlled modification of their band structure. This principle is employed for the manufacturing of devices ranging from high-performance ...transistors to solid-state lasers. Traditionally, strain is typically achieved via growth on lattice-mismatched substrates. For two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors, this is not feasible as they typically do not interact epitaxially with the substrate. Here, we demonstrate controlled strain engineering of 2D semiconductors during synthesis by utilizing the thermal coefficient of expansion mismatch between the substrate and semiconductor. Using WSe
as a model system, we demonstrate stable built-in strains ranging from 1% tensile to 0.2% compressive on substrates with different thermal coefficient of expansion. Consequently, we observe a dramatic modulation of the band structure, manifested by a strain-driven indirect-to-direct bandgap transition and brightening of the dark exciton in bilayer and monolayer WSe
, respectively. The growth method developed here should enable flexibility in design of more sophisticated devices based on 2D materials.Strain engineering is an essential tool for modifying local electronic properties in silicon-based electronics. Here, Ahn et al. demonstrate control of biaxial strain in two-dimensional materials based on the growth substrate, enabling more complex low-dimensional electronics.
Structural alloys are often strengthened through the addition of solute atoms. However, given that solute atoms interact weakly with the elastic fields of screw dislocations, it has long been ...accepted that solution hardening is only marginally effective in materials with mobile screw dislocations. By using transmission electron microscopy and nanomechanical characterization, we report that the intense hardening effect of dilute oxygen solutes in pure α-Ti is due to the interaction between oxygen and the core of screw dislocations that mainly glide on prismatic planes. First-principles calculations reveal that distortion of the interstitial sites at the screw dislocation core creates a very strong but short-range repulsion for oxygen that is consistent with experimental observations. These results establish a highly effective mechanism for strengthening by interstitial solutes.
Diamond is not only the hardest material in nature, but is also an extreme electronic material with an ultrawide bandgap, exceptional carrier mobilities, and thermal conductivity. Straining diamond ...can push such extreme figures of merit for device applications. We microfabricated single-crystalline diamond bridge structures with ~1 micrometer length by ~100 nanometer width and achieved sample-wide uniform elastic strains under uniaxial tensile loading along the 100, 101, and 111 directions at room temperature. We also demonstrated deep elastic straining of diamond microbridge arrays. The ultralarge, highly controllable elastic strains can fundamentally change the bulk band structures of diamond, including a substantial calculated bandgap reduction as much as ~2 electron volts. Our demonstration highlights the immense application potential of deep elastic strain engineering for photonics, electronics, and quantum information technologies.
Semiconductor heterostructures are the fundamental platform for many important device applications such as lasers, light-emitting diodes, solar cells, and high-electron-mobility transistors. ...Analogous to traditional heterostructures, layered transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures can be designed and built by assembling individual single layers into functional multilayer structures, but in principle with atomically sharp interfaces, no interdiffusion of atoms, digitally controlled layered components, and no lattice parameter constraints. Nonetheless, the optoelectronic behavior of this new type of van der Waals (vdW) semiconductor heterostructure is unknown at the single-layer limit. Specifically, it is experimentally unknown whether the optical transitions will be spatially direct or indirect in such hetero-bilayers. Here, we investigate artificial semiconductor heterostructures built from single-layer WSe ₂ and MoS ₂. We observe a large Stokes-like shift of ∼100 meV between the photoluminescence peak and the lowest absorption peak that is consistent with a type II band alignment having spatially direct absorption but spatially indirect emission. Notably, the photoluminescence intensity of this spatially indirect transition is strong, suggesting strong interlayer coupling of charge carriers. This coupling at the hetero-interface can be readily tuned by inserting dielectric layers into the vdW gap, consisting of hexagonal BN. Consequently, the generic nature of this interlayer coupling provides a new degree of freedom in band engineering and is expected to yield a new family of semiconductor heterostructures having tunable optoelectronic properties with customized composite layers.
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