Ceramics are easy to break, and very few generic mechanisms are available for improving their mechanical properties, e.g., the 1975-discovered anti-fracture mechanism is strictly limited to zirconia and hafnia. Here we report a general mechanism for achieving high plasticity through liquefaction of ceramics. We further disclose the general material design strategies to achieve this difficult task through entropy-boosted amorphous ceramics (EBACs), enabling fracture-resistant properties that can withstand severe plastic deformation (e.g., over 95%, deformed to a thickness of a few nanometers) while maintaining high hardness and reduced modulus. The findings reported here open a new route to ductile ceramics and many applications.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmt.2021.101011