Recently, Lecture No.123 of the China Materials Distinguished Scholars Forum was held in the academic lecture hall. Professor Brian Cantor, Fellow of the Royal Society and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering of the United Kingdom, was invited to deliver a special academic lecture entitled “Multi-component High-Entropy Cantor Alloys.” Academician Ge Changchun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and more than 150 faculty members and students from relevant units of the School of Materials Science and Engineering attended the event. Professor ZHANG Yong from the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials introduced the speaker’s research direction and academic achievements.
Academician Brian Cantor delivering the lecture
Professor Brian Cantor first introduced the history of alloying, the discovery of multicomponent alloys, the structural characteristics of multicomponent phase space, and the fundamental thermodynamic properties of multicomponent solid solutions such as Cantor alloys. He then elaborated on the complexity of local atomic and nanoscale configurations in such materials, as well as their influence on properties such as atomic diffusion and dislocation slip. Finally, he provided a detailed discussion on the resulting outstanding mechanical properties and potential applications, including applications under low-temperature and high-temperature conditions, corrosion resistance and radiation resistance, as well as their role in enhancing recycling and reuse.
On-site of the lecture
After the lecture, Academician Brian Cantor engaged in enthusiastic discussions with attending faculty and students on the content of the report. ZHANG Tian presented a commemorative gift of the China Materials Distinguished Scholars Forum to Academician Brian Cantor on behalf of the university.
Group photo commemorating the event
The China Materials Distinguished Scholars Forum was established by the university in 2003. It is a highly influential academic exchange platform in the field of materials science both in China and abroad, and has received strong support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Since its establishment, the forum has successfully held 123 sessions, inviting academic masters including Nobel Prize laureates, recipients of the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award, and academicians from China and abroad to deliver academic lectures. More than 40,000 young scholars from around the world have attended and benefited from the forum.
The School of Materials Science and Engineering at the university has developed a multidimensional academic activity system characterized by “Two-Month Two-Competition Four-Brand Activities,” including the “China Materials Distinguished Scholars Forum,” “Materials Distinguished Scholars Forum,” “Materials Faculty and Student Academic Salon,” and “Materials Graduate Student Roundtable.”
The keynote speaker, Professor Brian Cantor, is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a world-renowned materials scientist and scholar. He is currently Professor of Materials at the University of Oxford and Brunel University, and Editor-in-Chief of the Springer Nature journal High-Entropy Alloys and Materials. He previously served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bradford and the University of York, Head of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford, and a research scientist and engineer at General Electric Laboratories in the United States. He has also served as a consultant to Alcan of Canada, NASA of the United States, and Rolls-Royce. In addition, he has served as Chairman of the UK National Science Learning Centre (now the National STEM Centre), the Wolfson Centre for Applied Health, and the World Technology Universities Network, Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Trustee of the Science Museum Group in the United Kingdom.
He has held academic positions in universities across multiple countries, participated in the boards of directors of various spin-off companies and institutions, and received academic awards, honorary professorships, and fellowships from the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Japan, and India. He is widely recognized for pioneering the field of multicomponent high-entropy materials and the discovery of “Cantor alloys.” He has published over 300 books and papers, with more than 21,000 citations and an H-index of nearly 60. Upon his election as Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, he was described as “a global authority in materials manufacturing.” He was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2013 for his contributions to higher education and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2024.
