Thermodynamic properties of CrMnFeCoNi high entropy alloy at elevated electronic temperatures

Thermodynamic properties of CrMnFeCoNi high entropy alloy at elevated electronic temperatures Nikita Medvedev 1,2 The Cantor alloy (equiatomic CrMnFeCoNi) is a high-entropy alloy with unique physical properties and radiation resistance. To model its response to intense laser pulses, the parameters of the electronic ensemble are required. In this work, the electronic heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and electronphonon coupling strength at elevated electronic temperatures are evaluated using a combined approach that incorporates tight-binding molecular dynamics and the Boltzmann equation. The damage threshold fluence is estimated for a wide range of photon energies, from XUV to hard X-rays. It is found that at the electronic temperatures ~ 24,000 K (absorbed dose ~ 6 eV/atom), the Cantor alloy experiences nonthermal melting due to modification of the interatomic potential induced by electronic excitation, even without the increase of the atomic temperature. This effect must be included in reliable models of CrMnFeCoNi ablation under ultrafast laser irradiation. Keywords Cantor alloy, CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy, Nonthermal melting, Electron-phonon coupling, Electron heat conductivity, Electron heat capacity The equiatomic CrMnFeCoNi alloy, also known as the Cantor alloy, is an archetypical example of high-entropy alloys (HEA)1,2. Its unique properties attracted attention in a wide range of practical applications. Its high ductility, fracture toughness, strain hardening, high resistance to wear, corrosion, and hydrogen embrittlement make it suitable for its applications in harsh environments3–5. The recyclability and low fabrication costs of the high entropy alloys make them a promising candidate for wide industrial uses6,7. In particular, the Cantor alloy and its derivatives are known for their radiation hardness5,8,9. It attracted much attention as a candidate material for nuclear applications and radiation-loaded conditions9. However, most of the previous studies included low-dose-rate (low-flux) irradiation scenarios, except for the laser ablation of high entropy alloys10. High-dose-rate irradiation may produce qualitatively different effects and material states11,12. The laser micro-machining of materials is a commonly used industrial technique to design and manufacture materials with desired properties13,14. It involves precise material melting and ablation after high-intensity irradiation, forming sub-micron features on the surface and in the depth of the material. Pulsed-laser irradiation of HEA requires an understanding of the fundamental processes taking place in highly excited states under ultrafast energy deposition15,16. Generally speaking, ultrafast laser-matter interaction takes place via a sequence of processes, starting with photoabsorption by the electronic ensemble of the irradiation material. It drives the electronic system out of equilibrium, inducing the electron cascades of secondary ionisations, thermalisation among the electrons, and energy exchange with the atomic system (typically known as the electron-phonon coupling)16. Atomic heating via this coupling may lead to atoms acquiring sufficiently high temperatures, eventually overcoming their potential energy barriers and undergoing a phase transition – e.g., thermal melting15. Additionally, at high electronic temperatures (i.e., high intensities of the impinging laser pulse), some materials may exhibit nonthermal melting: a modification of the interatomic potential leading to lattice instabilities even without atomic heating17,18. The nonthermal melting is well established in semiconductors and insulators, but its occurrence in metals remains a subject of ongoing research, and is primarily supported by recent computational studies19. The thermodynamic and transport properties in the excited electronic system of matter are crucial parameters for understanding ultrafast laser ablation16. These parameters are hard to find for the Cantor alloy due to its complex atomic structure – simulation boxes with a large number of atoms are required to sample the random placement of various atoms. To fill this knowledge gap, we perform a detailed study of the equiatomic Cantor 1Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Slovance 1999/2, Prague 8 182 00, Czech Republic. 2Institute of Plasma Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Za Slovankou 3, Prague 8 182 00, Czech Republic. email: [email protected] OPEN Scientific Reports | (2025) 15:37335 1 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-21367-x www.nature.com/scientificreports alloy with the help of the XTANT-3 combined simulation tool20. It integrates tight-binding molecular dynamics, transport Monte Carlo, and Boltzmann collision integral methods into one model with feedback, delivering a state-of-the-art simulation method. It allows for the study of coupled effects of thermal, nonthermal, and nonequilibrium kinetics in the irradiated HEA. Model XTANT-3 code applied to simulation material parameters evolution under laser irradiation20. The model combines the following approaches to trace the effects of irradiation: the transport Monte Carlo (MC) method and the Boltzmann equation (BE) to trace the electronic system, and tight-binding (TB) molecular dynamics (MD) for the atomic system. The photoabsorption, the induced nonequilibrium electron kinetics, and the Auger decays of produced core holes are modelled with the event-by-event individual particle Monte Carlo approach21. The photoabsorption cross sections, the ionisation potentials of core shells, and Auger-decay times are used from the EPICS2023 database22 (see Supplementary Material). The electron impact ionisation cross section is calculated in the framework of the linear response theory (the complex-dielectric function formalism) with the single-pole method23 (the calculated electron inelastic mean free paths are also shown in the Supplementary Material). Slow electrons populating the bottom of the conduction band are modelled with the Boltzmann equation, including the electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions24. The contribution of the fast electron scattering and Auger decays form the additional source terms in the BE. The BE electrons are assumed to adhere to the Fermi-Dirac distribution, which is ensured by setting the electron-electron relaxation time to zero (infinitely fast electronic thermalization)24. Having Fermi-Dirac distribution established allows to trace the evolution of the electronic chemical potential and temperature upon irradiation. Being an integro-differential equation, the BE delivers a smooth solution for the electronic temperature, as will be seen below. The evolution of the electronic energy levels (band structure) is traced with the transferrable tight-binding method25–27. The sp3d5-based PTBP density-functional tight binding parametrisation is employed28. It includes pairwise interaction of all elements, allowing for modelling of complex materials, such as the Cantor alloy. The diagonalisation of the electronic Hamiltonian produces the electronic energy levels (molecular orbitals) and the transient interatomic forces25. Since the changes in the electronic distribution function (traced in the BE) directly affect the interatomic potential, the method is capable of describing the nonthermal melting27,29. The electron heat capacity is evaluated as the derivative of the electronic entropy at the given electron temperature; the electron chemical potential is calculated numerically on the transient electronic energy levels obtained from the TB module30. The electron heat conductivity is obtained with the help of the Onsager coefficients, including the electron-phonon and electron-electron contributions (on the k-vector grid of 7 × 7 × 7 points in the supercell)31. Both, electronic heat capacity and conductivity, are calculated for the perfect crystal lattice. In contrast, the electron-phonon coupling parameter is calculated via the nonperturbative dynamicalcoupling approach, which extracts the energy exchange rates from a dynamical simulation32. For a reliable evaluation of the electronic parameters, a sufficiently large supercell is required – here, 320 atoms in the simulation box are modelled32. As was studied previously, such a number of atoms is sufficient for convergence of the evaluated parameters (electron-phonon coupling, damage threshold, etc.)32. The atoms are placed randomly on the fcc grid and allowed to thermalise at room temperature for a few hundred femtoseconds prior to the simulation of irradiation. To eliminate artifacts of a particular placement of atoms, the evaluated electron heat capacity, conductivity, and the electron-phonon coupling parameters are averaged over 10 independent realizations with different random placement of atoms in the supercell, initial velocities (according to the Maxwellian distribution at room temperature), and parameters of the electronic temperature increase (see details in Ref.32). The molecular dynamic simulations use a time-step of 0.1 fs for evaluation of the electron-phonon coupling parameter, and a 1 fs step for radiation-damage simulations. Martyna-Tuckerman’s 4th-order algorithm is employed to propagate atomic trajectories33. The atomic temperature is evaluated as the kinetic temperature34, which naturally fluctuates in dynamic simulations. The simulation box size of 14.76 × 14.48 × 18.45 Å3 is defined via the steepest descent algorithm, producing the material density of 7.557g/cm3, which is slightly lower than the previously reported values of ~ 7.9g/cm335, which is typical for multi-element transferrable DFTB simulations. All the illustrations of the atomic snapshots are prepared with the help of OVITO36. Results Electronic properties We start with the evaluation of the electronic density of states (DOS) in the Cantor alloy, see Fig.1 showing a reasonable comparison with the previously reported DOS calculated with the density functional theory in Ref. 37. The total and partial DOS are shown, resolving the contribution of s, p, and d orbitals from each element. The bottom of the conduction band below the Fermi level is mostly formed by the d-orbitals of Ni, Co, Fe, and Mn atoms (in the order of the energy depth), whereas the DOS above the Fermi level is mainly formed by the d-orbitals of Cr. The electronic chemical potential rises monotonously from the Fermi level with an increase in the electronic temperature, Fig. 2. Having the DOS and the electronic chemical potential, the electronic heat capacity can be calculated38. It is shown in Fig. 3 that the electronic heat capacity rises significantly up to the electronic temperatures ~ 30,000 K and starts to decrease after that. The electron heat capacity is defined by the electronic DOS (Fig. 1) and the electronic populations (Fermi-Dirac distribution). With increase of the electronic Scientific Reports | (2025) 15:37335 2 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-21367-x www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Fig. 3. Electron heat capacity in fcc CrMnFeCoNi calculated with XTANT-3. Fig. 2. Electron chemical potential in fcc CrMnFeCoNi calculated with XTANT-3. Fig. 1. Electronic density of states in fcc CrMnFeCoNi calculated with XTANT-3. Total and partial DOS are shown, counted from the Fermi energy. For comparison, DFT calculations within LDA and LDA + DMFT by Redka et al. are shown37. Scientific Reports | (2025) 15:37335 3 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-21367-x www.nature.com/scientificreports/ temperature, the smearing of the distribution function stretches to the higher energy states above the chemical potential (which also shifts to higher energy, Fig. 2). The lower DOS at high energies corresponds to fewer electronic places available, which leads to lowering in the electronic heat capacity at high electronic temperatures. The electronic heat conductivity calculated with XTANT-3 is presented in Fig. 4, compared with the experimental low-temperature limit39. Berger et al. used the measured resistivity to calculate the electron thermal conductivity via the Wiedemann-Franz law39. An overall reasonable agreement is observed in Fig. 4, with the XTANT-3 calculations following the increasing trend with the increase in the electron temperature up to ~ 18,000 K, followed by a slow decrease. The electronic heat conductivity in the Cantor alloy is dominated by the electron-phonon contribution, whereas the electron-electron contribution is negligible (see the nearly coinciding total and electron-phonon contributions to the electron heat conductivity in Fig. 4; the electronelectron conductivity is much larger (not shown), which is added via the Matthiessen’s rule31, introducing only minor changes in the total value). The electronic heat conductivity is significantly smaller than that of the constituent elemental metals31, and also than, e.g., in stainless steel40. The calculated electron-phonon coupling parameter is shown in Fig. 5. The coupling strength in CrMnFeCoNi is relatively high, comparable to that in cobalt, chromium, and iron, especially at high electron temperatures32. Dynamical effects A series of dynamical simulations of irradiation of the Cantor alloy with various doses was performed, identifying the onset of material damage. Melting in CrMnFeCoNi takes place above the deposited dose of ~ 0.3–0.4eV/ Fig. 5. Electron-phonon (electron-ion) coupling in fcc CrMnFeCoNi calculated with XTANT-3. Fig. 4. Electron heat conductivity in fcc CrMnFeCoNi calculated with XTANT-3 (total and the electronphonon contribution), compared with low-temperature measurements by Berger et al.39. The inset zooms into the low-temperature region for better visibility of the comparison. Scientific Reports | (2025) 15:37335 4 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-21367-x www.nature.com/scientificreports/ atom. An example of the atomic snapshots after irradiation with 1eV/atom dose, 30eV photon energy and 10fs (full width at half maximum, FWHM, of the Gaussian pulse centred at 0fs) pulse duration is shown in Fig.6. The experimental melting temperature is reported to be around ~ 1563 –1613K41. At the deposited dose of 1eV/atom, this temperature is overcome already at sub-picosecond timescales, see Fig.7. The thermal melting starts to take place due to atomic heating by the excited electronic system via the electron-phonon coupling (Fig.5). By the time of 3–4 ps, the atomic system disorders completely (cf. Fig.6). Interestingly, the manganese sublattice experiences transient acceleration immediately after the rise in the electronic temperature due to photoabsorption (see a spike in the Mn temperature around 0 fs in Fig. 7). This selective nonthermal acceleration of atoms suggests that the interatomic potential is changed noticeably by the electronic excitation42. The same effect of the Mn subsystem reaction to electronic excitation was observed in stainless steel simulations40. The main effects of the electronic heating on the interatomic potential may be understood from the DOS analysis (Fig.1). With the increase of the electronic temperature, the smearing of the electron distribution promotes electrons from below the Fermi energy to the energy states above it. The energy states just below the Fermi energy are predominantly formed by the Mn d-electrons, whereas above it, they are mainly formed by the Cr d-electrons. As electrons are removed from the manganese d-states, they weaken Mn bonds, whereas other elements are significantly less affected. To evaluate the possibility of nonthermal melting, a separate series of simulations with various deposited doses in the Born-Oppenheimer (BO) approximation is performed (excluding the electron-phonon coupling). It is found that the atomic lattice loses stability at the deposited doses above ~ 6 eV/atom (the electronic temperature Fig. 7. Electronic and atomic temperatures (total and element-specific) in CrMnFeCoNi irradiated with a laser pulse of 30eV photons, 10fs FWHM duration, 1eV/atom absorbed dose; simulation including electronphonon coupling (nonadiabatic dynamics). Fig. 6. Atomic snapshots of CrMnFeCoNi irradiated with a laser pulse of 30eV photons, 10fs FWHM duration, 1eV/atom absorbed dose; simulation including electron-phonon coupling (nonadiabatic dynamics). Scientific Reports | (2025) 15:37335 5 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-21367-x www.nature.com/scientificreports/ ~ 24,000 K) in the BO simulation, see an example in Fig. 8. This figure demonstrates that the atomic lattice in the Cantor alloy can disorder purely due to modification of the interatomic potential induced by the electronic excitation, without atomic heating. In contrast to most covalent materials17,27,43, the nonthermal melting is not ultrafast but occurs at ~ 1 ps timescales, comparable to the thermal melting timescales. It is worth emphasising that the BO simulation is only performed to show the existence of such an effect as purely nonthermal melting in high entropy alloys; in practice, ultrafast energy deposition often leads to intertwined thermal and nonthermal effects44,45. An experimental validation is needed, although it is a nontrivial task to discern the two effects46. It is also interesting to note that the nonthermal melting threshold in the Cantor alloy is much higher than that in, e.g., stainless steel, another complex metallic alloy40. This finding is in line with the notion of the exceptional radiation resistance of the CrMnFeCoNi high entropy alloy5,8,9. Assuming normal photon incidence, no nonlinear effects, no particle and energy transport, and no electron or photon emission from the surface, the damage threshold dose may be converted into the incident fluence27. The threshold fluences for thermal and nonthermal melting in the Cantor alloy in a broad range of photon energies from extreme ultraviolet (XUV) to hard X-ray are shown in Fig. 9. This estimate may be used to guide the experiments and application of laser-irradiation of CrMnFeCoNi. Unfortunately, to date, there is no experimental data on XUV or X-ray damage threshold in the Cantor alloy. Experiments performed with near-infrared laser irradiation (photon energy ~ 1.17 eV, Ref. 47), identified the ablation threshold fluence as 0.24 J/cm2. Our calculated damage threshold at this photon energy would be significantly higher than this value (see dotted line in Fig. 9); one possible reason for this is that no nonlinear effects (multiphoton absorption, evolution of the reflection and absorption coefficients during the laser pulse, etc.) are taken into account in our conversion of the deposited dose to incident fluence. At photon energies below ~ 10 eV and laser intensities sufficient for material ablation, such as those studied in the experiment in Ref.47, nonlinear effects are expected to be a significant, if not dominant, contribution48. In contrast, for photon energies above ~ 10 eV, the laser intensities corresponding to the material damage onset are expected to produce only linear photoabsorption, thus the results reported in Fig. 9 should be reliable. We envision that the presented calculations should motivate new experiments on X-ray irradiation of the Cantor alloy to validate the predictions reported. Conclusions Equiatomic CrMnFeCoNi high entropy alloy (the Cantor alloy) is simulated with the help of the XTANT-3 hybrid code. The electronic heat capacity and conductivity are calculated up to the electronic temperatures of ~ 50,000K. The electron-phonon coupling parameter is evaluated using the nonperturbative dynamical coupling approach up to the electronic temperature of ~ 20,000K. The thermal damage threshold is estimated as ~ 0.3– 0.4eV/atom, where material melting occurs at the picosecond timescale. The damage threshold fluence as a function of the incident photon energy up to hard X-rays is presented. Our simulations indicate that the Cantor alloy may exhibit nonthermal melting, inducing atomic disorder due to changes in the interatomic potential triggered by the electronic excitation. The atomic lattice loses stability at the deposited doses above ~ 6eV/atom (the electronic temperature ~ 24,000K) in a Born-Oppenheimer simulation (excluding the electron-phonon coupling); including electron-phonon coupling (nonadiabatic simulation) leads to intertwining of the two effects. The manganese sublattice is especially susceptible to nonthermal acceleration due to electronic excitation, exhibiting a transient temperature rise. These effects must be considered in modelling and interpreting the experiments on laser ablation of the high entropy alloys. Fig. 8. Atomic snapshots of Born-Oppenheimer simulation (no electron-phonon coupling) of CrMnFeCoNi irradiated with a laser pulse of 30eV photons, 10fs FWHM duration, 7eV/atom absorbed dose. 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Acknowledgements Computational resources were provided by the e-INFRA CZ project (ID:90254), supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. Author contributions N.M. wrote the software, executed the calculations, analyzed the data, prepared the figures and wrote the manuscript. Funding The author thanks the financial support from the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (grant nr. LM2023068), and from the European Commission Horizon MSCA-SE Project MAMBA [HORIZON-MSCA-SE-2022 GAN 101131245]. Declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 3 8 / s 4 1 5 9 8 - 0 2 5 - 2 1 3 6 7 - x . Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to N.M. Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints. 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