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To resolve how nanoscale chemical heterogeneity governs plasticity, this study establishes a distribution-based framework that directly maps experimentally measured stacking fault widths to distributed fault-energy landscapes in the chemically complex alloy CrCoNi. The framework reveals that local energy fluctuations stabilize planar defects, capturing an upward shift in apparent fault energetics from negative values toward zero driven by L12-type chemical short-range order after annealing. By coupling kinetic Monte Carlo simulations with electron microscopy, the authors prove that history-dependent shifts across this energetic distribution dictate whether the alloy deforms via stacking faults, nanotwinning, or martensitic HCP phase transformation.
Treating fault energy as a scalar average breaks down in chemically complex alloys, where history-dependent local chemical ordering shifts fault energy distributions from negative values toward zero to steer deformation pathways.
Chemically complex alloys feature intrinsically heterogeneous local chemical environments and, consequently, fluctuations in local fault energetics. However, experimentally quantifying their relationship remains challenging, leaving the role of this distributed energy landscape in deformation mechanisms incompletely resolved. Here, we develop a distribution based framework linking experimentally measured stacking fault widths to deformation relevant apparent fault energy, revealing a distributed local fault-energy landscape in CrCoNi. The framework reveals the stabilizing role of energy fluctuations and captures an upward shift in the apparent fault energetics, from negative values toward zero following heat treatment, which atomistic simulations associate with the emergence of L12 type chemical short-range order. Using one-dimensional kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, supported by electron microscopy observations, we further show that history-dependent changes in the local fault-energy landscape bias the competition among stacking faulting, nano-twinning and HCP transformation in CrCoNi. Our results provide an experimentally anchored, distribution-based framework for understanding deformation in chemically complex alloys as it evolves within a distributed fault-energy landscape shaped by local chemical order.