Mechanical properties of compositionally-rich body-centered cubic VNbTaMoW alloy

We determined the mechanical properties, microstructure, and composition of a VNbTaMoW alloy enriched with carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen using a combination of nano- and micro-indentation, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. We show that the alloy is nearly equiatomic, V0.20Nb0.20Ta0.20Mo0.22W0.18, body-centered cubic polycrystal, with depth-dependent C, N, and O concentrations, whose elastic moduli and hardnesses decrease with increasing indentation depth due primarily to depth-dependent changes in the bulk impurity concentration.