Ultralight High-Entropy Nanowire Scaffolds for Extreme-Temperature Functionality

Abstract

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) combine compositional disorder with exceptional functional tunability, yet their inherently high-density limits use in lightweight systems. Here, we introduce entropy-architected nanowire metamaterials, a class of materials that couple configurational entropy with structural porosity to achieve metal-like functionality at ultralow density. FeCoNiCrCu HEA nanowires were electrodeposited into porous templates and freeze-cast into three-dimensional ``bird`s-nest`` scaffolds with densities below 1 $\%$ of the bulk metal. The resulting architectures retain a disordered face-centered-cubic phase, exhibit Curie temperatures exceeding 1000 K, and deliver thermal diffusivity ($\approx 0.211$ mm${}^2$ s${}^{-1}$) comparable to titanium alloys. Structural and spectroscopic analyses reveal nanoscale Cu segregation that enhances magnetic ordering and thermal stability. These findings demonstrate that configurational entropy and architectural hierarchy can be co-engineered to yield lightweight, high-temperature functional materials for extreme-environment applications.

References in corpus (9)

• Freezing as a path to build complex composites
• 3D Nanomagnetism in Low Density Interconnected Nanowire Networks
• Tunable Low Density Palladium Nanowire Foams
• Probing Magnetic Configurations in Co/Cu Multilayered Nanowires
• Interplay between magnetism and short-range order in medium- and high-entropy alloys: CrCoNi, CrFeCoNi, and CrMnFeCoNi
• Spatial evolution of the ferromagnetic phase transition in an exchange graded film
• Efficient and Robust Metallic Nanowire Foams for Deep Submicrometer Particulate Filtration
• 3D Interconnected Magnetic Nanowire Networks as Potential Integrated Multistate Memristors
• Magnetism in Metastable and Annealed Compositionally Complex Alloys