Ultrahigh-strength and ductile superlattice alloys with nanoscale disordered interfaces

Strength through disorder Jet turbine blades and other objects with ultrahigh strength at high temperatures are made of special alloys that are often grown as costly single crystals to help avoid failure. Yang et al. discovered that adding a small amount of boron in a nickel-cobalt-iron-aluminum-titanium alloy creates an ultrahigh-strength material. Critically, the alloy has a nanoscale-disordered interface in between crystal grains that substantially improves the ductility while preventing high-temperature grain coarsening. This alloy design creates attractive high-temperature properties for various applications. Science , this issue p. 427