Exceptional damage-tolerance of a medium-entropy alloy CrCoNi at cryogenic temperatures

High-entropy alloys are an intriguing new class of metallic materials that derive their properties from being multi-element systems that can crystallize as a single phase, despite containing high concentrations of five or more elements with different crystal structures. Here we examine an equiatomic medium-entropy alloy containing only three elements, CrCoNi, as a single-phase face-centred cubic solid solution, which displays strength-toughness properties that exceed those of all high-entropy alloys and most multi-phase alloys. At room temperature, the alloy shows tensile strengths of almost 1 GPa, failure strains of ∼70% and K(JIc) fracture-toughness values above 200 MPa m(1/2); at cryogenic temperatures strength, ductility and toughness of the CrCoNi alloy improve to strength levels above 1.3 GPa, failure strains up to 90% and K(JIc) values of 275 MPa m(1/2). Such properties appear to result from continuous steady strain hardening, which acts to suppress plastic instability, resulting from pronounced dislocation activity and deformation-induced nano-twinning.