A comprehensive review on advances in high entropy alloys: Fabrication and surface modification methods, properties, applications, and future prospects

Scientific and technological improvements have occurred over time, including alloys that have developed from normal to intricate compositions, consequently enhancing performance and characteristics and promoting advancements. High Entropy Alloy (HEA) is an innovative state-of-the-art material class with five more elemental constituents than conventional alloys, which typically have one or two base elements. HEAs have uncommon microstructures and numerous appealing properties, such as great strength, great hardness, rich resistance to corrosion, fracture and fatigue resistance, high-temperature stability, and so on, that outperform conventional alloys. These superior properties of enriched HEAs are extremely interesting not only for research purposes but also for a variety of promising potential applications. Recent research has focused on the use of HEAs for coating and surface modification. Surface coatings containing HEA have been shown to improve surface performance and mechanical properties. As a result, this paper discusses a detailed review of HEA processing methods, state-of-the-art HEA-based coating and joining processes, and their mechanical properties. Moreover, this critical review comprehensively describes the different applications and future research directions required for designing these alloys. The predicted results of this article can be deemed crucial for future manufacturing and analysis studies for HEAs, and they are helpful for researchers and producers in this field.