Entropy-Driven Structural Evolution in Ceramic Oxides
High-entropy ceramics, with five or more elements randomly occupying the same cation crystallographic sites, offer vast compositional diversity and unique properties for material design and applications. However, for many dissimilar elements, entropic stabilization cannot overcome the enthalpic barrier to cation substitution. As a result, most high-entropy ceramics incorporate only a few similar elements, limiting the in-depth exploration of the effect of entropy on ceramic properties. Here, we first use density functional theory to model fluorite crystal structures composed of 1-10 elements and then experimentally present practical fluorite oxide nanostructures containing 1, 3, 8, and 15 metals, as well as a record-breaking 25-element high-entropy ceramic incorporating a diverse palette of rare-earth, transition, alkaline, <i>p</i>-block, and noble metals. As entropy increases, structural and configurational disorder in the solid solution rises, altering structural features such as lattice distortion, crystallinity, homogeneity, defect density, and thermal stability. This research provides new insights and understanding of the role of entropy in stabilizing compositionally complex ceramics.
Authors
- Feipeng Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5470-3241)
- Baishakhi Mazumder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1748-5297)
- Zhengxi Xuan
- Jeffrey J. Urban (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4909-2869)
- Mark T. Swihart (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9652-687X)
- Dominik Wierzbicki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0558-7405)
- Sanjit Ghose (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0245-8560)
- Chaochao Dun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3215-6478)
- Lin Xiong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5736-3537)
- Shaon Das (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2160-6058)
- Wei Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1135-7721)
- Zhou Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3271-5345)
- Kun Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0704-5370)
- Shuo Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1182-6572)
- Kaiwen Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1534-4020)
- Xinyi Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0731-6069)
Institutions
- State University of New York (US)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (US)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- Impact (CA)
- Alfred University (US)
- University at Buffalo, State University of New York (US)
- AGH University of Krakow (PL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Published
- 2025-07-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c06254
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- High Entropy Alloys Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.57
Funders
- American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund
- National Energy Technology Laboratory
- Division of Materials Research
- Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Building Technologies Office