Professor Jien-Wei Yeh explored and researched high-entropy alloys and related materials since 1995. He believes that there is a high entropy effect ignored before, which can inhibit stoichiometric intermetallic compounds and enhances the formation of solid solution phases. He published more than 240 SCI papers including at least 180 papers on high-entropy materials from 2004 to now. He has named and defined the new alloys; proposed four core effects and established fundamental principles; extended the concept to ceramics and polymers; and paved different ways via casting, wrought, powder metallurgy and coating routes to show the feasibility, phenomena, and potential of high-entropy materials for new comers. In ICHEM-2018, steering committee of the conference elected him as the Chair of International High Entropy Materials Consortium. Moreover, he has more than 33,152 citations, and an H-index of 79 (Scopus, on June 14). He also has at least 40 patents.
“High-Entropy Materials (HEMs)” has become an emerging field through the collective efforts of many researchers in the last two decades. Such materials were revolutionary because they were historically thought to be difficult or even impossible to be fabricated and applicable due to their brittleness by nature. High entropy effect which was ignored before has become well-known to enhance the formation of multielement solution phases and avoid complicated microstructure with complex phases. As the long-standing bottlenecks of conventional materials were difficult to be solved by conventional materials concept, HEMs thinking will increase the whole materials ability to solve the conventional bottlenecks. Various categories of materials with high entropy effect have been developed, which indeed display promising properties for different applications. It is the time to build HEMs technology which could transfer those promising discoveries into industrial production and thus create well-being for our society. In this presentation, the main bottlenecks in conventional materials and the ESG issues in energy, waste, pollution, natural resource conservation are pointed out to emphasize the large opportunities of HEMs and related materials. Some industrialized examples of high-entropy materials technology are also presented.