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Order or disorder, that is the question in high-entropy alloys

Nature Reviews Materials volume 11, pages 82–83 (2026)Cite this article

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High-entropy alloys were once thought to owe their exceptional properties to complete chemical disorder, but advances over the past decade revealed that subtle forms of atomic order are widespread and often essential. Recognizing how order and disorder work together is now reshaping alloy design and opening new routes to stronger, tougher and more reliable materials.

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Fig. 1: Compositional space and chemical ordering states in high-entropy alloys.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks E. Ma, R. Ritchie, M. Asta, T. Yang, F. Zhu, L. Li and Y. Yang for valuable discussions. This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2023YFB3712002), National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 52571017) and National Youth Talents Program.

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  1. Center for Alloy Innovation and Design, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Jun Ding

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  1. Jun Ding
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Correspondence to Jun Ding.

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Ding, J. Order or disorder, that is the question in high-entropy alloys. Nat Rev Mater 11, 82–83 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-025-00887-y

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