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Spark Plasma Sintering of Nanosized Amorphous Silicon Nitride Powder with a Small Amount of Sintering Additive
Author(s) -
Hotta Mikinori,
Shinoura Takanori,
Enomoto Naoya,
Hojo Junichi
Publication year - 2010
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.1551-2916.2009.03575.x
Subject(s) - spark plasma sintering , sintering , materials science , amorphous solid , silicon nitride , equiaxed crystals , ceramic , chemical engineering , metallurgy , silicon , microstructure , crystallography , chemistry , engineering
Dense and fine‐grained β‐Si 3 N 4 ceramics were successfully obtained with a small amount of sintering additives, 1.5 mass% Y 2 O 3 and 0.5 mass% Al 2 O 3 , using nanosized amorphous Si 3 N 4 powder by spark plasma sintering at temperatures of 1500°–1800°C and a pressure of 30 MPa under N 2 . The β‐Si 3 N 4 ceramics were composed of equiaxed grains with an average size of 300 nm. A higher sintering temperature was required for the densification of submicrometer‐sized α‐Si 3 N 4 powder with the small amount of the additives. The use of nanosized amorphous Si 3 N 4 powder accelerated the densification and the transformation to the β‐phase.