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The high-carbon steels are extensively used for bearings, cutting tools, dies and more generally applications that require high hardness, wear resistance and dimensional stability. In such cases, the retained austenite (RA) phase plays a crucial role as they significantly affect the mechanical properties and stability, although the high-carbon steels are predominantly based with martensitic microstructures. RA is a metastable phase in room temperature, which can be transformed into martensite either under local stress or sub-zero temperature holdings; or, staying at a high enough temperature for given sufficient time, it can also decompose into a mixture of carbide and ferrite. This instability of RA will significantly affect both the hardness and dimensional stability of high carbon steels. In general, austenite in high-carbon steels cannot be transformed to martensite completely after conventional quenching treatments. It has been demonstrated that RA leads to cyclic hardening through transformation, and enhances the development of a mean compressive stress and toughness in high carbon steels,1,2) especially when the steel is intrinsically brittle.3) However, the RA is a very ductile phase,4) and its presence would deteriorate the homogeneity of hardness and reduce the dimensional stability of products, which may also lead to deterioration in fatigue performance or even failure in extreme cases because the volume expansion accompanying its (martensitic) transformation introduces localized stresses.5) This issue is most important in high-carbon steels which contain more RA due to their high carbon-content. Especially in the bearing industry, where bearings are pressThermal Stability of Retained Austenite in High-carbon Steels during Cryogenic and Tempering Treatments