Symbiotic crystal-glass alloys via dynamic chemical partitioning

The design of high performance structural materials is always pursuing combinations excellent yet often mutually exclusive properties such as mechanical strength, ductility and thermal stability. Although crystal-glass composite alloys provide better compared to fully amorphous alloys, their stability poor, due heterogeneous nucleation at the interface. Here we present a new strategy develop thermally stable, ultrastrong deformable nanocomposites through thermodynamically guided alloy approach, which mimics mutual stabilization principle known from symbiotic ecosystems. We realized this in form model Cr-Co-Ni (crystalline)/Ti-Zr-Nb-Hf-Cr-Co-Ni (amorphous) laminate alloy. has an ultrahigh compressive yield strength 3.6 GPa large homogeneous deformation ?15% strain ambient temperature, values surpass those conventional metallic glasses nanolaminate alloys. Furthermore, exhibits ?200 K higher crystallization temperature (TX > 973 K) that original TiZrNbHf-based phase. elemental partitioning among adjacent crystalline phases leads thermodynamic stabilization, opening up approach for strong ductile materials.