Giant Nonhysteretic Responses of Two-Phase Nanostructured Alloys

A new class of functional materials with giant nonhysteretic strain responses to applied fields is considered. They are decomposed two-phase systems consisting of single-domain nanoprecipitates of a low-symmetry phase. Their strain response is caused by the field-induced change of structural orientation of the domain states of these precipitates. The superresponse follows from the novel concept of structural anisotropy that is analogous to the magnetic anisotropy. Its vanishing produces a new glasslike structural state. The developed phase field theory and modeling allow us to formulate criteria for searching superresponsive two-phase nanostructured alloys.