Architectured heterogeneous alloys with selective laser melting

Hetero-structuring is considered as one of the effective strengthening routes in metallic materials to real-ize excellent strength-ductility synergy. However, tailoring several microstructural features in these het-erogeneous materials is challenging. In this work, we demonstrate a new capability of selective laser melting in controlling the site-specific microstructures and developing architectured heterogeneous ma-terials. The heterostructured stainless steel samples demonstrated an excellent combination of strength and ductility compared to homogeneous materials. The current approach is versatile and can be used for many printable alloys. Further, this work opens a new direction in metal additive manufacturing to produce heterostructured materials for enhanced strength and ductility. (c) 2021 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.