Advancing Solid State Synthesis to Enable Nonexistent Intermetallics

Synthesis of complex intermetallics is often a bottleneck of the materials by design concept. The limitations of conventional synthetic approaches resulted in inability to synthesize predicted materials in ternary and quaternary systems with drastically different reactivities of the constituent elements. Several strategies to advance synthesis and produce challenging phases will be discussed, such as averaging precursor reactivity by atomic mixing of refractory components; and prebuilding chemical bonds in the precursor. In-situ studies are crucial for the development of effective synthesis, especially when backed-up with ex-situ synthetic explorations and DSC results.