High- and medium-entropy alloys (HEAs and MEAs) possess high solid-solution strength. Numerous investigations have been conducted on its impact on yield strength, however, there are limited reports regarding the relation between solid-solution strengthening and strain-hardening rate. In addition, no attempt has been made to account for the dislocation-mediated plasticity; most works focused on twinning- or transformation-induced plasticity (TWIP or TRIP). In this work we reveal the role of solid-solution strengthening on the strain-hardening rate via systematically investigating evolutions of deformation structures by controlling the Cr/V ratio in prototypical V_1-xCr_xCoNi alloys. Comparing the TWIP of CrCoNi with the dislocation slip of V_0.4Cr_0.6CoNi, the hardening rate of CrCoNi was superior to slip-band refinements of V_0.4Cr_0.6CoNi due to the dynamic Hall-Petch effect. However, as V content increased further to V_0.7Cr_0.3CoNi and VCoNi, their rate of slip-band refinement in V_0.7Cr_0.3CoNi and VCoNi with high solid-solution strength surpassed that of CrCoNi. Although it is generally accepted in conventional alloys that deformation twinning results in a higher strain-hardening rate than dislocation-mediated plasticity, we observed that the latter can be predominant in the former under an activated huge solid-solution strengthening effect. The high solid-solution strength lowered the cross-slip activation and consequently retarded the dislocation rearrangement rate, i.e., the dynamic recovery. This delay in the hardening rate decrease, therefore, increased the strain-hardening rate, results in an overall higher strain-hardening rate of V-rich alloys.

Precipitation strengthening has been the basis of physical metallurgy since more than 100 years owing to its excellent strengthening effects. This approach generally employs coherent and nano-sized precipitates, as incoherent precipitates energetically become coarse due to their incompatibility with matrix and provide a negligible strengthening effect or even cause brittleness. Here we propose a shear band-driven dispersion of nano-sized and semicoherent precipitates, which show significant strengthening effects. We add aluminum to a model CoNiV medium-entropy alloy with a face-centered cubic structure to form the L2₁ Heusler phase with an ordered body-centered cubic structure, as predicted by ab initio calculations. Micro-shear bands act as heterogeneous nucleation sites and generate finely dispersed intragranular precipitates with a semicoherent interface, which leads to a remarkable strength-ductility balance. This work suggests that the structurally dissimilar precipitates, which are generally avoided in conventional alloys, can be a useful design concept in developing high-strength ductile structural materials.