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Materials for extreme environments can help to protect people, structures and the planet. Extreme temperatures in aeroplane engines, hypervelocity micrometeoroid impacts on satellites, high-speed machining of ceramics and strong radiation doses in nuclear reactors are just some examples of extreme conditions that materials need to withstand. In this Viewpoint, experts working on materials for different types of extreme environments discuss the most exciting advances, opportunities and bottlenecks in their fields.

A size-controlled composite powder feedstock design effectively enhanced the cryogenic strength and ductility of additively manufactured medium-entropy alloys through in-situ formation of hard and stiff reprecipitates.

Research in new alloy compositions and treatments may allow the increased strength of mass-produced, intricately shaped parts. Here authors introduce a superplastic medium manganese steel which has an inexpensive lean chemical composition and which is suited for conventional manufacturing processes.

Metallurgists have designed an extraordinary titanium alloy that is light, strong and flexible, and which recovers its original shape after large amounts of deformation — even when as cold as liquid helium or hotter than boiling water.

This study introduces a deep active optimization pipeline that effectively tackles high-dimensional, complex problems with limited data. The approach minimizes sample size and surpasses existing methods, achieving optimal solutions in up to 2,000 dimensions.

This study reveals the role of boron and carbon in protecting critical interfaces sensitive to hydrogen: the tailored segregation critically reduces the hydrogen ingress, leading to an unprecedented resistance against hydrogen embrittlement.

Dual-scale chemical ordering in CoNiV-based alloys improves the synergy of strength and ductility at cryogenic temperatures, providing an approach for obtaining high-performance metallic materials for cryogenic applications.

3D correlative nanoscale tomography on an Fe-W alloy shows that topology requires secondary grain boundary dislocations which strongly control patterned solute segregation, reshaping segregation energy spectra and opening routes for advanced alloy design.

Combining atomic-scale imaging and density-functional-theory defect phase diagrams, this study shows that boron at steel grain boundaries rearranges iron atoms, triggers defect phase transformations, and greatly increases resistance to embrittlement.

Using differential phase contrast imaging and density-functional theory, the authors identify and explain observations of well-ordered interface-stabilized phase states (referred to as complexions) at the iron/magnetite interface.

Reduction of iron oxide using hydrogen offers a sustainable route to lower carbon emissions in steelmaking. Here, the effect of iron oxide grain size on reduction kinetics and microstructure evolution are uncovered, finding that large-grained samples reduce faster initially, while finer-grained samples achieve more complete and efficient reduction.

Designing complex concentrated alloys with targeted properties for high performance remains challenging because of their complex local atomic environments. Here, the authors show how to engineer atomic-level pressure to customize complexity-induced properties such as solid-solution strengthening.

A one-step hydrogen-based redox process turns oxides directly into green alloys in bulk forms, with application-worthy properties.

Although silicon anodes are promising for solid-state batteries, they still suffer from poor electrochemical performance. Chemo-mechanical failure mechanisms of composite Si|Li₆PS₅Cl and solid-electrolyte-free silicon anodes are now revealed and should help in designing improved electrodes.

Understanding the underlying mechanisms during corrosion is one of the grand key missions to improve the sustainability of the material world. Here, the authors combine atomic scale imaging and calculations to show how solute atoms react during aqueous corrosion of a multicomponent Al alloy.

Soft magnetic materials are critical components of electric motors, generators and transformers, however obtaining a material that is magnetically soft, but mechanically robust and stable at high temperature is very difficult. Here, Han et al succeed in combining these disparate properties by introducing ferromagnetic Widmanstätten patterned intermetallic precipitates into a ferromagnetic alloy matrix.

The performance of solid-state batteries is affected by stress responses of their complex microstructure to volume changes from Li⁺ intercalation. Here, authors present a chemo-mechanical model to study the impact of grain-level chemo-mechanics on the degradation of composite positive electrodes.

Interplay between structure and composition of grain boundaries remains elusive, particularly at the atomic level. Here, the authors discover the atomic motifs, which is the smallest structural unit, control the most important chemical properties of grain boundaries.

High-performance magnets are essential for energy conversion, but rare earth dependence and brittleness limit their use. Here, authors develop a rare earth-free magnet with enhanced magnetic and mechanical properties by introducing nano-lamellar structures via thermo-magnetic processing.

An alloy design strategy that aims for phase metastability, rather than phase stability, is described that will lead to the development of transformation-induced plasticity-assisted, dual-phase high-entropy alloys, which exhibit a rare combined increase in strength and ductility.

An iron–cobalt–nickel–tantalum–aluminium multicomponent alloy with ferromagnetic matrix and paramagnetic coherent nanoparticles is described, showing high tensile strength and ductility, along with very low coercivity.

Atom-scale analysis of hydrogen and other elements at the grain boundaries of a 7xxx aluminium alloy shows that co-segregation of elements favours grain boundary decohesion, and that hydrogen embrittlement is prevented by strong partitioning into the second-phase particles.

Interstitials can substantially strengthen metals. Here the authors show a massive interstitial solid solution (MISS) approach enabling a model multicomponent alloy to achieve near-theoretical strength together with large deformability.

Typically undesired chemically heterogeneous microstructures are shown to enhance the resistance of high-strength steel against hydrogen embrittlement, with no loss in strength or ductility.

Wear-resistant metals have long been a pursuit of reducing wear-related energy and material loss. Here the authors present the ‘reactive wear protection’ strategy via friction-induced in situ formation of strong and deformable oxide nanocomposites on a surface.

Strong and ductile materials with resistance to both corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement remain rare and yet are essential for hydrogen-propelled industries. Here, the authors show that a CoNiV medium-entropy alloy with face-centered cubic structure fulfils all the above criteria.

Designing materials with temperature-independent electrical resistivity is difficult due to temperature-dependent electron-phonon scattering. Here, the authors achieve this in a strong and ductile alloy by tuning atomic-scale chemistry and structure.

Designing soft magnets with yield strengths exceeding one gigapascal while remaining ductile to prevent irreversible deformation for safe and efficient operation is challenging. The authors address this challenge by employing a nanostructuring strategy with morphologically anisotropic precipitates.

Red mud is shown to yield green steel through fossil-free hydrogen-plasma-based reduction, a simple and fast method involving rapid liquid-state reduction, chemical partitioning, and density-driven and viscosity-driven separation.

Screw dislocations in α-iron move more easily in the presence of hydrogen, as evidenced by real-time imaging using quantitative transmission electron microscopy.

Wall–fluid interactions are known to have a large influence on the physics of confined glasses. Here, the authors observe a multiple re-entrant glass transition for a polydisperse hard-sphere system confined between two surfaces, when the wall separation distance is of the order of a few particle diameters.

Production defects prevent many industrially important materials from being adopted by metal additive manufacturing. Here, the authors propose a universal thermodynamics-guided alloy design approach to assist the discovery of crack-free materials.

The avalanche of publications challenges the norm that researchers extract knowledge from literature to design materials. Here the authors present a text-mining method that is implemented based on the abstracts of 6.4 million papers to enable the design of new high entropy alloys.

Mechanical twinning is difficult to trigger in face centered cubic alloys with high stacking fault energies (SFEs) under standard tensile loading. Here, the authors report high stress twinning in a bulk compositionally complex steel of very high SFE, enhancing the material’s mechanical performance.

The competition between the formation of different phases and their kinetics need to be clearly understood to make materials with on-demand and multifaceted properties. Here, the authors reveal, by a combination of complementary in situ techniques, the mechanism of a Cu-Zr-Al metallic glass’s high propensity for metastable phase formation, which is partially through a kinetic mechanism of Al partitioning.

The relationship between the strain rate and micro-scale deformation in metals is still poorly understood. Here the authors use discrete dislocation dynamics and molecular dynamics to establish a universal relationship between material strength, dislocation density, strain rate and dislocation mobility in fcc metals.

Common wisdom to improve ductility of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) is to introduce local loose packing regions at the expense of strength. Here the authors enhance structural fluctuations of BMGs by introducing dense local packing regions, resulting in simultaneous increase of ductility and strength.

Hydrogen contamination in metals during sample preparation for high-resolution microscopy remains a challenge, especially when hydrogen itself is being investigated. Here, the authors show that using cryogenic milling significantly reduces hydrogen pick-up during sample preparation of titanium and titanium alloys.

Adding minute amounts of rhenium to Ni-based single crystal superalloys extends their high temperature performance in engines, but the reasons behind that are still unclear. Here, the authors combine high resolution imaging and modelling to show that rhenium enriches and slows down partial dislocations to improve creep performance.

Anion vacancies are a hurdle for technologies based on chalcogenide semiconductors and topological insulators. Even at room temperature, oxidation and cyanide etching can lead to selenium vacancies in CuInSe₂ photovoltaic material but suitable post deposition treatments can mitigate their effect.