Fundamentals of Multicomponent High-Entropy Materials

Human development has been a continuing attempt to use new materials in ever more sophisticated ways to enhance the quality of human life. Throughout history, we have made materials with a main component based on the principal property required, with small alloying additions to provide secondary properties.
But recently, there has been a revolution as we have discovered how to make much more complex mixtures, providing completely new materials, requiring entirely new scientific theories, and massively extending our ability to make useful products. These new materials are called multicomponent or high-entropy materials.

This is the first textbook on the fundamentals of these new multicomponent high-entropy materials. It includes contextual chapters on the history and future potential for developing humankind as driven by the discovery of new materials, and core chapters on methods for discovering and manufacturing multicomponent high-entropy materials, their underlying thermodynamic and atomic and electronic structures, their physical, mechanical and chemical properties, and their potential applications.

This book concentrates on the main new concepts and theories that have been developed. It is written by the scientist who first discovered multicomponent high-entropy materials, and covers how to make them as well as their structures, properties and potential applications, providing an overview and a summary of the state of play for researchers as well as for students and newcomers entering the field.

Brian Cantor, Professor, Deparment of Materials, University of Oxford

Brian Cantor has worked as a materials scientist for over 50 years. He is currently Professor of Materials at the University of Oxford and Brunel University London, and a Trustee of the Science Museums Group. He has been Vice-Chancellor of the Universities of Bradford and York, Head of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Oxford, Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a research scientist at General Electric, a visiting professor at Washington State University and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and a consultant at Alcan, NASA and Rolls-Royce. He founded and built up (amongst other things) the UK National Science Learning Centre (now the UK National STEM Centre), the World Technology Universities Network (WTUN), the Begbroke Science Park, the Heslington East Campus, and the Hull-York Medical School. He invented the field of multicomponent high-entropy materials and discovered the so-called Cantor alloys.