High-entropy-alloy nanoparticles

[1] HEA-NPs possess a wide range of compositional library, distinct alloy mixing structure, and nanoscale size effect, giving them huge potential in catalysis, energy, environmental, and biomedical applications.

[4][5]) The carbothermal shock employs a rapid high-temperature heating (e.g. 2000 K, in 55 ms) to enable the non-equilibrium synthesis of HEA-NPs with uniform size and homogeneous mixing despite containing immiscible combinations.

[10] In 2024 a study showed that induction plasma can be used as a one-step method that enables the continuous synthesis of HEA-NPs directly from elemental metal powders via in-flight alloying.

[14] In addition, due to the immense number of possibilities of compositions and surfaces (i.e., terrace, edge, and corner) available for HEA-NPs, simulations such as density functional theory calculations are also popularly used for their analysis.

One suggested mechanism for the enhanced structural stability is through prevention of phase separation due to lattice distortions from different sized elements acting as diffusion barriers.