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Self-assembled soft alloy with Frank–Kasper phases beyond metals

Nature Materials volume 23, pages 570–576 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Soft building blocks, such as micelles, cells or soap bubbles, tend to adopt near-spherical geometry when densely packed together. As a result, their packing structures do not extend beyond those discovered in metallic glasses, quasicrystals and crystals. Here we report the emergence of two Frank–Kasper phases from the self-assembly of five-fold symmetric molecular pentagons. The μ phase, an important intermediate in superalloys, is indexed in soft matter, whereas the ϕ phase exhibits a structure distinct from known Frank–Kasper phases in metallic systems. We find a broad size and shape distribution of self-assembled mesoatoms formed by molecular pentagons while approaching equilibrium that contribute to the unique packing structures. This work provides insight into the manipulation of soft building blocks that deviate from the typical spherical geometry and opens avenues for the fabrication of ‘soft alloy’ structures that were previously unattainable in metal alloys.

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Fig. 1: Structural characteristics and prevalence of FK phases across material systems.
Fig. 2: Chemical structures and hierarchical self-assembly from discrete molecules to phases based on mesoatoms.
Fig. 3: Structural characterizations.
Fig. 4: Evolution of key FK phases (FK phases that globally consisted of one tiling mode at all vertices).
Fig. 5: Formation mechanism of μ and ϕ phases.

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Data availability

The main data supporting the findings of this study are available within this article and its Supplementary Information. The data that support the findings of this study are publicly available through figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.23497661.

Code availability

The atomic coordinates of the optimized computational models are publicly available through figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.23497661. The script for data analysis is available through GitHub at https://github.com/xy-0/molecular-pentagon.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. S. Siegel, R.-Q. Lu, F. A. Spaepen, S. Wang, S. Li, B. Deng and D. R. Nelson for their helpful discussion or technical assistance; the staff of Beamline BL16B1 at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility for assistance with the small-angle X-ray scattering experiments; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Materials Research Laboratory for providing the software. We also thank the National Science Foundation (DMR-1408872 to S.Z.D.C.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1832220 to S.Z.D.C.), the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices (2019B121203003 to S.Z.D.C.), the Recruitment Program of Guangdong (51890871 to S.Z.D.C.) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019JQ05 to M.H.) for funding support.

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Author notes

  1. Xiao-Yun Yan

    Present address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

  2. These authors contributed equally: Xian-You Liu, Xiao-Yun Yan.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Xian-You Liu, Xiao-Yun Yan, Yicong Wang, Jing Wang, Huanyu Lei, Xing-Han Li, Rui Zhang, Yu Wang, Mingjun Huang, Zhiwei Lin, Xian Kong & Stephen Z. D. Cheng

  2. Department of Polymer Science, School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA

    Xiao-Yun Yan, Yuchu Liu, Qing-Yun Guo & Stephen Z. D. Cheng

  3. State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, iChEM and College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

    Hang Qu & Xiao-Yu Cao

  4. Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Fenggang Bian

  5. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Rui Zhang, Yu Wang, Mingjun Huang, Zhiwei Lin & Xian Kong

  6. Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Chemistry, Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    E. W. Meijer

  7. Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Takuzo Aida

  8. Riken Center for Emergent Matter Science, Wako, Japan

    Takuzo Aida

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Contributions

X.-Y.Y. and S.Z.D.C. conceptualized the study. X.-Y.L. and X.-Y.Y. provided synthesis. X.-Y.Y. provided structural characterization. X.-Y.Y. and X.K. performed simulation. X.-Y.L., X.-Y.Y. and Yicong Wang performed vizualisation. X.-Y.L., X.-Y.Y., Y.L., Yu Wang, M.H., Z.L., E.W.M., T.A., X.K. and S.Z.D.C. performed the formal analysis. Y.L., H.Q., Yicong Wang, J.W., Q.-Y.G., H.L., X.-H.L., F.B. and R.Z. provided resources. X.-Y.Y. and S.Z.D.C. performed project administration. S.Z.D.C. provided supervision. X.-Y.L., X.-Y.Y. and S.Z.D.C. wrote the original paper. X.-Y.L., X.-Y.Y., Y.L., H.Q., Yicong Wang, J.W., Q.-Y.G., H.L., X.-H.L., F.B., X.-Y.C., R.Z., Yu Wang, M.H., Z.L., E.W.M., T.A., X.K. and S.Z.D.C. reviewed and edited the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiao-Yun Yan, Xian Kong or Stephen Z. D. Cheng.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Materials and Methods, Text, Figs. 1–30, Tables 1–11 and References.

Supplementary Data

The crystal lattices proposed for the two phases investigated in this study.

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Liu, XY., Yan, XY., Liu, Y. et al. Self-assembled soft alloy with Frank–Kasper phases beyond metals. Nat. Mater. 23, 570–576 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01796-7

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