Evaluation of Solid-Solution Hardening in Several Binary Alloy Systems Using Diffusion Couples Combined with Nanoindentation

Analysis of solid-solution hardening (SSH) in alloys requires the synthesis of large composition libraries and the measurement of strength or hardness from these compositions. Conventional methods of synthesis and testing, however, are not efficient and high-throughput approaches have been developed in the past. In the present study, we use a high-throughput combinatorial approach to examine SSH at large concentrations in binary alloys of Fe-Ni, Fe-Co, Pt-Ni, Pt-Co, Ni-Co, Ni-Mo, and Co-Mo. The diffusion couple (DC) method is used to generate concentration (c) gradients and the nanoindentation (NI) technique to measure the hardness (H) along these gradients. The obtained H –c profiles are analyzed within the framework of the Labusch model of SSH, and the \( c^{2/3} \) dependence of H predicted by the model is found to be generally applicable. The SSH behavior obtained using the combinatorial method is found to be largely consistent with that observed in the literature using conventional and DC-NI methods. This study evaluates SSH in Fe-, Ni-, Co-, and Pt-based binary alloys and confirms the applicability of the DC-NI approach for rapidly screening various solute elements for their SSH ability.