Structural Changes in Multi Principal Element Alloys in Dependence on the Aluminium Content

The development of novel light metal alloys represents an important task in the further optimization of technical materials. Multi-component systems with more than 4 metals are very promising to outperform currently existing alloys, but lack significant research in systems not dominated by transition metals to date. In this work, alloys containing the elements Al, Cu, Mg and Zn were produced using magnetron sputter deposition. A detailed structural investigation using electron microscopy provided valuable insights into the influences of different metals and their relative proportions in the alloy on material properties.