A highly distorted ultraelastic chemically complex Elinvar alloy

The development of high-performance ultraelastic metals with superb strength, a large elastic strain limit and temperature-insensitive elastic modulus (Elinvar effect) are important for various industrial applications, from actuators and medical devices to high-precision instruments^1,2. The elastic strain limit of bulk crystalline metals is usually less than 1 per cent, owing to dislocation easy gliding. Shape memory alloys³—including gum metals^4,5 and strain glass alloys^6,7—may attain an elastic strain limit up to several per cent, although this is the result of pseudo-elasticity and is accompanied by large energy dissipation³. Recently, chemically complex alloys, such as ‘high-entropy’ alloys⁸, have attracted tremendous research interest owing to their promising properties^9–15. In this work we report on a chemically complex alloy with a large atomic size misfit usually unaffordable in conventional alloys. The alloy exhibits a high elastic strain limit (approximately 2 per cent) and a very low internal friction (less than 2 × 10⁻⁴) at room temperature. More interestingly, this alloy exhibits an extraordinary Elinvar effect, maintaining near-constant elastic modulus between room temperature and 627 degrees Celsius (900 kelvin), which is, to our knowledge, unmatched by the existing alloys hitherto reported.