Dr. Olga Miroshkina's first-time proposal has been granted by the DFG. The fund provides financing for her position for three years. The project, “From Fe-, Ni-, Co-based Heusler Alloys to High Entropy Alloys: The Role of p-d Hybridization and Positional Disorder in Structural Transformations,” aims to discover new materials with structural phase transitions suitable for functional applications among complex Heusler and high-entropy alloys (HEAs). The project will focus particularly on p-d covalent hybridization and the mechanisms responsible for structural transformations in HEAs. The electronic structure and exchange interactions of HEAs will be compared with those of Heusler alloys, which are (partially) ordered. This will allow to distinguish the role of disorder in structural transitions in complex magnetic materials. The objective is to understand why the transformation to the hcp phase is possible in HEAs, while this transition is not observed in Heusler alloys. To achieve this, the electronic, magnetic, and structural properties will be theoretically investigated at the nanoscale for complex multicomponent compounds. The study will start with ordered Fe-, Ni-, and Co-based Heusler alloys, introducing disorder into these systems, and will extend to five-component HEAs consisting of the same elements. As a result of the project, complex multicomponent magnetic materials based on Fe, Ni, and Co, demonstrating structural phase transitions between fcc, bcc, and hcp phases with high magnetization and Curie temperature, will be predicted.