High-entropy materials emerged as a field of research in 2004, when the first research on high-entropy alloys was published. The scope was soon expanded from high-entropy alloys to medium-entropy alloys, as well as to ceramics, polymers and composite materials. A fundamental understanding on high-entropy materials was proposed in 2006 by the ‘four core effects’ — high-entropy, severe-lattice-distortion, sluggish-diffusion and cocktail effects — which are often used to describe and explain the mechanisms of various peculiar phenomena associated with high-entropy materials. Throughout the years, the effects have been examined rigorously, and their validity has been affirmed. This Perspective discusses the fundamental understanding of the four core effects in high-entropy materials and gives further insights to strengthen the understanding for these effects. All these clarifications are believed to be helpful in understanding low-to-high-entropy materials as well as to aid the design of materials when studying new compositions or pursuing their use in applications.

2004 年，第一篇关于高熵合金的研究发表，高熵材料成为一个研究领域。范围很快从高熵合金扩展到中熵合金，以及陶瓷、聚合物和复合材料。 2006年，“四大核心效应”——高熵效应、严重晶格畸变效应、慢扩散效应和鸡尾酒效应——提出了对高熵材料的基本认识，这些效应经常被用来描述和解释各种奇特的机理。与高熵材料相关的现象。多年来，其效果经过了严格的检验，其有效性也得到了肯定。本视角讨论了对高熵材料的四种核心效应的基本理解，并提供了进一步的见解以加强对这些效应的理解。所有这些澄清被认为有助于理解低熵到高熵材料，以及在研究新成分或追求其在应用中的用途时帮助材料设计。