Philosophical Magazine

High-Entropy Materials: Extreme Environment Materials for Nuclear Reactors, Aerospace, and Beyond

Philosophical Magazine, with the support of Professor Peter Liaw of University of Tennessee, and Dr Jamieson Michael Brechtl of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is pleased to announce a new article collection dedicated to advances in high entropy materials.  

High-entropy materials (HEMs), including alloys, ceramics, polymers, and other multi-component materials, have proven to be a fascinating class of mixtures that have opportunities for use in extreme environments where conventional materials face challenges. Stemming from independent work by Professors Brian Cantor and Jien-Wei Yeh, the field began with the discovery of high-entropy alloys (HEAs).

Traditional alloys usually contain either one or two main metals with small amounts of other elements. For example, steel is primarily iron with small amounts of carbon, while bronze consists mainly of copper with tin. By contrast, HEAs typically contain five or more principal elements, with each element making up at least 5 atomic percent, resulting in compositions that are far more complex than conventional alloys. While it was previously believed that alloys containing high proportions of multiple elements would result in brittle materials with numerous intermetallic phases, researchers instead discovered that these compositions could form stable solid solutions with relatively simple phase structures.

In 2004, Brian Cantor described an equiatomic CoCrFeMnNi alloy that formed a face-centred-cubic solid solution. In the same year, the term “high-entropy alloy” was coined by Jien-Wei Yeh, who also proposed the four core effects of HEA’s: high entropy, lattice distortion, sluggish diffusion, and cocktail effects. Since then, the field has expanded to include high-entropy oxides, carbides, and borides amongst others, which are all complex multi-component solid solutions.

The effects that Yeh described give rise to useful properties across metallic and ceramic HEMs, including high strength and hardness, ductility, thermal stability at elevated temperatures, low thermal conductivity, and excellent resistance to oxidation, corrosion, and wear. Consequently, HEMs are now being deployed across several industries, with applications including nuclear- reactor components, hydrogen-storage systems, electrocatalysts for water splitting, aerospace-turbine engines, and for biomedical implants.

This article collection aims to showcase recent advances in the synthesis, design, characterisation, and diverse uses of HEMs. The collection will provide an overview of the field, with themes spanning from the fundamental physics to practical applications across different disciplines. Themes in scope for this collection include, but are not limited to:

• Fundamental theory and computational design
• Manufacturing and processing
• Performance in extreme environments
• Nuclear and radiation applications
• Aerospace applications
• Mechanical behaviour and deformation
• Energy applications
• Catalysis
• Biomedical applications
• Technological innovations

Key Words:

High-Entropy Materials, High-Entropy Alloys, Four Core Effects, Metallic, Ceramics, Polymers, Hydrides, Interdisciplinary

Manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 28th December 2026.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, selecting 'Article Collection: High-entropy materials' from the drop-down menu for consideration in this Article Collection. For any questions, please contact Edward Spofford.

Meet the Guest Advisors

Peter Liaw earned his B.S. in Physics from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University under Prof. Morris Fine. After working at Westinghouse R&D, he joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as Endowed Ivan Racheff Chair of Excellence in MSE. His research spans fatigue and fracture, neutron and synchrotron diffraction, bulk-metallic glasses, and high-entropy alloys, often in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and global colleagues.

Jamieson Brechtl is an Associate R&D Staff Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He earned his doctorate in Energy Science and Engineering from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, receiving the Chancellor's Citation for Extraordinary Professional Promise. At the lab, he has contributed to diverse R&D projects spanning additively manufactured ceramics, advanced frost sensors, heat pump water heaters, irradiated materials, magnetocaloric refrigeration, novel heat exchangers, phase change materials, pool boiling, and dehumidification technologies.