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Grain Growth Control in Sb 2 O 3 ‐Doped Zinc Oxide
Author(s) -
Daneu Nina,
Rečnik Aleksander,
Bernik Slavko
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1151-2916.2003.tb03479.x
Subject(s) - grain growth , microstructure , doping , materials science , zinc , grain boundary , grain size , analytical chemistry (journal) , mineralogy , chemical engineering , metallurgy , chemistry , optoelectronics , chromatography , engineering
Microstructure development in Sb 2 O 3 ‐doped ZnO was studied to evaluate the influence of inversion boundaries (IBs) on ZnO grain growth. In general, the addition of Sb 2 O 3 is believed to inhibit the ZnO grain growth via the formation of spinels and IBs, but we have shown that even the conditions of exaggerated grain growth can be created in this system. We designed an experiment for diffusional doping of ZnO under slightly increased partial pressure of Sb 2 O 3 . In the high‐concentration regime we observed no spinels, and yet the ZnO grains were small and inhibited in growth, while in the low‐concentration regime we found huge grains, several times larger than normal ZnO grains, showing an obvious exaggerated growth. By controlling the number of nuclei with IBs we can design coarse‐grained microstructures even with Sb 2 O 3 doping, which has far‐reaching implications in the production of low‐voltage varistor devices.