2025年5月3日，课题组硕士生郄赛尧和青年教师刘瑶副教授共同完成的论文“Strengthening effect and negative thermal expansion behavior in the MnNiGe-based intermetallic compounds”被金属材料领域旗舰刊物ACTA MATERIALIA录用。祝贺她们！

论文摘要：

The intermetallic with first-order phase transition are functional materials with great potential in many areas. However, the poor mechanical properties of these materials severely inhibit their application. In this article, the MnNiGe-based materials with rather large transformation strains were chosen to explore the enforcement of mechanical properties. We have adopted the multiple-phase intermetallic compounds strategy by fabricating the Mn0.97Fe0.03NiCuxGe alloys. The compounds possess high density of stacking faults in the MnNiGe main phase and the pre-induced dislocations at the interface. The pre-induced defects will enhance the ductility and avoid the intrinsic brittleness of the alloys, endowing the material with high compressive strength and resistance to the transformation strain. Moreover, the present intermetallic compounds exhibit a combined giant negative to zero thermal expansion and mechanical performance within a wide temperature range. We have also studied the second phase's influence on the phase transition of the main phase. The in-situ TEM investigation demonstrates that the second phase will cause latency in the phase transition of the main phase, resulting in a widened transition temperature range and further the NTE temperature range. Our work thus presents the intermetallic phase-enforced mechanical properties of the MnNiGe-based alloys with rather large transformation strain, which sheds light on the second phase strengthening mechanism of the magneto-structural transition materials and possibly promotes the application procedure of these kinds of materials.