  The interactions between solute atoms and crystalline defects such as
vacancies, dislocations, and grain boundaries play an essential role in
determining physical, chemical and mechanical properties of solid-solution
alloys. Here we present a universal correlation between two electronic factors
and the solute-defect interaction energies in binary alloys of
body-centered-cubic (bcc) refractory metals (such as W and Ta) with
transition-metal substitutional solutes. One electronic factor is the
bimodality of the d-orbital local density of states for a matrix atom at the
substitutional site, and the other is related to the hybridization strength
between the valance sp- and d-bands for the same matrix atom. Remarkably, the
correlation is independent of the types of defects and the locations of
substitutional sites, following a linear relation for a particular pair of
solute-matrix elements. Our findings provide a novel and quantitative guidance
to engineer the solute-defect interactions in alloys based on electronic
structures.
