Abstract
Bulk mechanical energy-absorbing materials are critically needed for various engineering applications. However, existing state-of-the-art materials face significant limitations: architected systems such as 3D-printed nano- and micro-lattices suffer from scalability constraints, while conventional foams often exhibit a strength-ductility trade-off that limits energy absorption. Here, we overcome these challenges by fabricating bulk architected alloys via electrochemical dealloying of a machine learning-identified compositionally complex spinodal alloy. These materials display a hierarchical structural architecture spanning seven orders of magnitude – from atomic-scale lattice distortion, nanoscale precipitates and amorphous oxide layers, microscale ligaments, to macroscale network dimensions. This multi-scale integration enables synergistic deformation mechanisms, yielding energy absorption capacities of ~106 MJ/m3 in bulk and ~ 305 MJ/m3 in micro-samples. Crucially, this enhanced performance is retained from room temperature to 873 K. Our approach provides an effective strategy for designing scalable, high-performance architected materials for demanding condition energy absorption.
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mlY.Y. discloses support for the research of this work from Research Grants Council, the Hong Kong government, through the general research fund with grant numbers CityU11207325 and CityU11202924. Q.W. discloses support for the research of this work from the National Natural Science Foundation of China with grant number NFSC U23A2065.
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Gong, H., Geng, Y., Wang, Q. et al. Bulk spinodal-architected compositionally complex alloy with enhanced energy absorption across a wide temperature range. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73884-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73884-6
