Recently, the research team led by Professor Shiteng Zhao, together with Professors Hongbo Guo and Ruixiao Zheng, from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University (BUAA), has published the research paper High Impact Resistance in a High‑Entropy Alloy with Thermally Stable Hierarchical Heterostructures in the top‑tier international journal 《Nature Materials》.

With the continuous iteration of equipment in aerospace, deep‑sea exploration, advanced protection and other fields, numerous components are required to serve long‑term under harsh conditions such as high temperature, high pressure and high‑velocity impact. Conventional metallic materials can hardly meet the service requirements in extreme environments, which creates an urgent demand for the development of novel materials and advanced technologies. In this work, multi‑scale 3D heterogeneous high‑entropy alloys were fabricated via mechanical milling, spark plasma sintering and aging treatment. The long‑standing challenges of insufficient strength and poor microstructural thermal stability for face‑centered‑cubic high‑entropy alloys have been addressed. This study provides a new route for material design targeting extreme‑service‑condition applications.

Vilory applied vacuum inert gas atomization (VIGA) powder‑making technology to produce (FeCoNi)₈₆Al₇Ti₇ pre‑alloyed powder for this research. High‑purity raw materials were adopted with strict impurity control. Equipped with intelligent high‑precision production facilities, the powder‑making vacuum level can reach below 10 Pa. The powder exhibits an average particle size of 72 μm, and is compatible with the full set of powder metallurgy processes.