What Has Been Achieved: The team successfully incorporated multivalent Mn²⁺ and Fe²⁺ into metastable rock salt high-entropy oxides by tuning oxygen chemical potential during synthesis. These cations are typically unstable in this structure under ambient conditions.
Importance of the Achievement: This work demonstrates a design strategy that uses oxygen chemical potential to stabilize aliovalent, size-mismatched cations. It expands access to functional oxides beyond conventional equilibrium limits.
How is the achievement related to the IRG, and how does it help it achieve its goals? This achievement supports the IRG’s goal of discovering functionality enabled by disorder. It establishes design rules for synthesizing metastable oxides and highlights how thermodynamic control can enable new classes of entropy-stabilized materials.
Where the findings are published: S.S.I. Almishal et al., Thermodynamics-Inspired High-Entropy Oxide Synthesis, Nat Commun 16, 8211 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63567-z