Growth and texture of spark plasma sintered Al2O3 ceramics: A combined analysis of X-rays and electron back scatter diffraction

Abstract

Textured alumina ceramics were obtained by Spark Plasma Sintering of undoped commercial a-Al 2 O 3 powders. Various parameters (density, grain growth, grain size distribution) of the alumina ceramics, sintered at two typical temperatures 1400 C and 1700 C, are investigated. Quantitative textural and structural analysis, carried out using a combination of Electron Back Scattering Diffraction and X-ray diffraction, are represented in the form of mapping and pole figures. The mechanical properties of these textured alumina ceramics include high elastic modulus and hardness values with high anisotropic nature, opening the door for a large range of applications. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC [http://dx

FAST/SPS sintering of nanocrystalline zinc oxide—Part II: Abnormal grain growth, texture and grain anisotropy

“…Interestingly, the presence of adsorbed water on nanocrystalline ZnO strongly promotes diffusion resulting into significant decrease of sintering temperatures necessary for full densification, which offers a reduction of grain boundary mobility [19]. Furthermore, the growth of polycrystalline microstructure may result in the formation of texture, which affects electrical [20][21][22][23] and mechanical [24] properties. In general, texture is a preferred alignment of grains or crystallographic axis [22], but crystalline texture and morphologic texture (anisotropy of grain shape) do not necessarily need to coincide [23].…”

BiFeO3/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 heterostructures deposited on spark plasma sintered LaAlO3 substrates

“…18 Another step of grinding was necessary to obtain powders with homogeneous grain sizes. The resulting LaAlO 3 powders were sintered under 50 MPa at 1550 C for 30 min using SPS, as described elsewhere.…”

“…Substrates were cut from the SPS ceramic, were mechanically polished to 10 lm using silicon carbide paper, and were successively polished with diamond pastes of 3 lm and 1 lm for about 2 min, resulting in a mirror-like surface with a roughness of 3-4 nm. 18 The polished surface was finally etched in 5% HF:HNO 3 solution to remove surface contaminants and to release strain due to polishing. The heterostructures consisted of a 100 Å thick LSMO base layer and a 500 to 1000 Å thick BFO top layer, where the LSMO served as an epitaxial metallic bottom contact for the PFM analysis.…”

High-throughput synthesis of thermoelectric Ca3Co4O9 films

“…More details of the EBSD analysis of such SPS fabricated Al 2 O 3 ceramics can be found elsewhere. 16 The crystalline quality of the Al 2 O 3 grains and grain boundaries, which serve as templates for the oriented growth of the Ca 3 Co 4 O 9 films, were investigated by TEM. A typical high-resolution TEM image of a grain boundary is shown in Figure 1(d).…”

“…16 Briefly, an appropriate amount of powder was pressed under 100 MPa at 1700 C. The crystalline phase was confirmed to be corundum using conventional x-ray diffraction. The sintered samples were polished successively up to a 3-4 nm roughness for EBSD characterization and subsequent film growth.…”