Effect of Electron Count and Chemical Complexity in the Ta-Nb-Hf-Zr-Ti High-Entropy Alloy Superconductor

Abstract

High-entropy alloys are made from random mixtures of principal elements on simple lattices, stabilized by a high mixing entropy. The recently discovered BCC Ta-Nb-Hf-Zr-Ti high entropy alloy superconductor appears to display properties of both simple crystalline intermetallics and amorphous materials, e.g. it has a well defined superconducting transition along with an exceptional robustness against disorder. Here we show that the valence-electron count dependence of the superconducting transition temperature in the high entropy alloy falls between those of analogous simple solid solutions and amorphous materials, and test the effect of alloy complexity on the superconductivity. We propose high-entropy alloys as excellent intermediate systems for studying superconductivity as it evolves between crystalline and amorphous materials.