Alloys 'Remember' Their Thermal History: Study Reveals How Cooling Freezes Atomic Order

A recent study revealed that the arrangement of atoms within certain metal alloys is not determined solely by thermodynamics, but can be directly influenced by the material’s heating and cooling history, a finding that could aid in the development of more stable alloys capable of retaining their properties.

The study, published in Nature Communications, examined the phenomenon of “short-range chemical order” in a cobalt-chromium-nickel alloy. Researchers concluded that major transitions in this ordering may result from kinetic arrest of atoms, akin to what occurs during glass transition, rather than necessarily from conventional thermodynamic transformations.

According to the University of São Paulo newspaper, atoms can remain “trapped” in different configurations depending on the heating and cooling rates, meaning that the metal’s thermal processing history can leave its imprint on its final atomic structure.

The research involved scientists from the Federal University of São Carlos, the University of São Paulo, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and Wuhan University of Technology, in a collaboration that could pave the way for designing materials with more predictable performance.