• Yang, Nancy
• Delplanque, Jean -Pierre
• Fraga, Martin B.
• Monson, Todd C.
• Lavernia, Enrique J.

Abstract

Here, this work studies the microstructural evolution of nanocrystalline (<1 µm) barium titanate (BaTiO₃), and presents high pressure in field-assisted sintering (FAST) as a robust methodology to obtain >100 nm BaTiO₃ compacts. Using FAST, two commercial ~50 nm powders were consolidated into compacts of varying densities and grain sizes. Microstructural inhomogeneities were investigated for each case, and an interpretation is developed using a modified Monte Carlo Potts (MCP) simulation. Two recurrent microstructural inhomogeneities are highlighted, heterogeneous grain growth and low-density regions, both ubiqutously present in all samples to varying degrees. In the worst cases, HGG presents an area coverage of 52%. Because HGG is sporadic but homogenous throughout a sample, the catalyst (e.g., the local segregation of species) must be, correspondingly, distributed in a homogenous manner. MCP demonstrates that in such a case, a large distance between nucleating abnormal grains is required—otherwise abnormal grains prematurely impinge on each other, and their size is not distinguishable from that of normal grains. Compacts sintered with a pressure of 300 MPa and temperatures of 900 °C, were 99.5% dense and had a grain size of 90±24 nm. These are unprecedented results for commercial BaTiO₃ powders or any starting powder of 50 nm particle size—other authors have used 16 nm lab-produced powder to obtain similar results.

Topics

• density
• impedance spectroscopy
• grain
• grain size
• simulation
• sintering
• grain growth
• Barium