Ultrafine and nanocrystalline states of equiatomic face‐centered cubic (fcc) high‐entropy alloy (HEA) CoCrFeNiMn (“Cantor” alloy) are achieved by high‐pressure torsion (HPT) at 300 K (room temperature, RT) and 77 K (cryo). Although the hardness after RT‐HPT reaches exceptionally high values, those from cryo‐HPT are distinctly lower, at least when the torsional strain lies beyond γ = 25. The values are stable even during long‐time storage at ambient temperature. A similar paradoxal result is reflected by torque data measured in situ during HPT processing. The reasons for this paradox are attributed to the enhanced hydrostatic pressure, cryogenic temperature, and especially large shear strains achieved by the cryo‐HPT. At these conditions, selected area electron diffraction (SAD) patterns indicate that a partial local phase change from fcc to hexagonal close‐packed (hcp) structure occurs, which results in a highly heterogeneous structure. This heterogeneity is accompanied by both an increase in average grain size and especially a strong decrease in average dislocation density, which is estimated to mainly cause the paradox low strength.

In this work, we studied the low-temperature plasticity, elastic and dissipative characteristics, as well as the microstructural evolution of the Fe40Mn40Co10Cr10 high-entropy alloy in a wide temperature range of 300 - 0.5 K. The temperature dependences of yield strength, strain hardening, strength and ductility, as well as acoustic absorption and dynamic Young's modulus are obtained. It was found that the structure of Fe40Mn40Co10Cr10 alloy in the initial state is single-phase with fcc lattice, and in the deformed state at low temperatures it becomes two-phase due to the deformation-induced phase transition. In addition, EBSD analysis of the alloy structure revealed a change in grain morphology and the appearance of twin dislocations after plastic deformation at all investigatedtemperatures. Acoustic studies showed that the transition from the initial to the deformed state changes the character of the temperature dependence of the dynamic Young's modulus from almost linear to exponential, and reduces the absolute values. The Fe40Mn40Co10Cr10 alloy has excellent strength and ductility at a high strain hardening rate, which is explained by the significant contribution of the twinning process. With a decrease in temperature from 300 to 4.2 K, a strong temperature dependence of the yield strength is observed, which indicates the thermal activation of the nature of the plastic deformation of the alloys in this temperature range. In the temperature range of 0.5-4.2 K, an anomaly of the yield strength was observed, namely a decrease in the value of the yield strength with decreasing temperature from 4.2 K to 0.5 K. The anomalous dependence of the yield strength is due to a change in the mechanism of overcoming local barriers from thermoactivated to inertial one, when part of the local obstacles is overcome by dislocations without activation. This leads to a decrease in yield strength with decreasing temperature. At a temperature of 4.2 K and below, the smooth nature of the plastic deformation changes from smooth to serrated. The jumps begin immediately after the yield strength and gradually increase from 40 MPa to ~ 160 MPa. The results obtained are important for practical applications of high-entropy alloys at low temperatures.

High-quality stoichiometric Co2Al–NO3 and Co2Al–CO3 layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have been obtained by precipitation followed by anion exchange, both high-power-sonication assisted. Application of high-power ultrasound has been demonstrated to result in a considerable acceleration of the crystallization process and the anion-exchange reaction. Two independent approaches were used to form bulk and 2-D samples of Co2Al–NO3 with the oriented crystallites, namely uniaxial pressing of deposits from sonicated LDH slurries and magnetic field-assisted arrangement of LDH crystallites precipitating on glass substrates. A convenient way of preparation of semi-transparent compacts with relatively big blocks of oriented crystallites have been demonstrated. Thin dense transparent films of highly-ordered crystallites of Co2Al–NO3 LDH have been produced and characterized.

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