Research Projects

Semiconductor materials play a crucial role in energy harvesting, opto-electronics, energy storage, healthcare, and environmental protection. However, the exploration of traditional semiconductor groups is limited. High entropy alloys/Oxides (HEA/HEO) offer a significant opportunity for materials innovation due to their vast compositional space. Preliminary work by the team revealed that a few different HEA/HEOs displayed a broad range of functional properties, indicating enormous potential for exploring this field with a robust materials design approach. HEAs are classified based on composition and configurational entropy, providing a wide range of properties suitable for large applications. Energy recovery is essential to reduce global energy demand and lower greenhouse-gas emissions. The unsustainable improvement of fossil fuels has led to environmental issues, making renewable energy resources more important. Case studies have shown that adding semiconductor metals to HEA/Os transforms valence bands and band gaps through the cocktail effect. While this does not alter mechanical and structural stability, it affects electrical and magnetic properties. The study aims to focus on engineering specific targets, including fabrication of metastable materials, obtaining correlative maps of structure-composition properties, bulk production of selected phases, and quantitative evaluation to obtain benchmark values. This project will significantly impact global energy management and contribute significantly to materials technology and fundamental materials science.