Two dimensional (2D) materials such as metal carbides are attractive owing to their unique structures and various potential applications. Although various synthetic methods have been developed for fabrication of 2D materials, it is still challenging to directly synthesize 2D carbides. Herein, we propose a new approach to convert in-situ 3D iron carbide into defect free 2D one in conventional carbon steels by controlling the deformation accumulation to drive atomic rearrangement within the carbides. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation demonstrated that ring-like, helical and other morphological 2D iron carbides can be formed under 30 % compressive deformation. Experimentally, the strength of 2D hexagonal iron carbide is estimated to be 12 GPa–18 GPa, which is 4–5 times that of original orthorhombic iron carbide (3.0 GPa–3.5 GPa) and the in-situ grown 2D carbide results in 176 % increase in strength of the steels. The first principles simulations show that the 2D iron carbides can be converted through its multiple slip systems under both the compressive and tensile pressure. This approach may open a new door for in-situ controllable growth of various 2D materials owning to rich metallic bond variety, slip system multiplicity and deformation diversity in metallic alloys.

二维（2D）材料（例如金属碳化物）由于其独特的结构和各种潜在的应用而具有吸引力。尽管已经开发出各种合成方法来制造2D材料，但是直接合成2D碳化物仍然具有挑战性。在此，我们提出了一种新的现场转化方法通过控制变形累积以驱动碳化物内的原子重排，将3D碳化铁转变为常规碳钢中的无缺陷2D合金。密度泛函理论（DFT）计算表明，在30％的压缩变形下可以形成环状，螺旋形和其他形态的二维碳化铁。在实验中，二维六角形碳化铁的强度估计为12 GPa–18 GPa，是原始斜方碳化铁（3.0 GPa–3.5 GPa）的4–5倍，原位生长的二维碳化物的强度为176％增加钢的强度。第一个原理模拟表明，二维碳化铁可以在压缩压力和拉伸压力下通过其多个滑移系统进行转换。这种方法可能为就地打开新的大门 由于金属合金具有丰富的金属键变化，滑移系统多样性和变形多样性，因此各种2D材料的可控生长。