Abstract
Many technical ceramic materials are densified with additives that form a liquid phase at elevated temperatures to provide liquid phase sintering. The exact distribution of the liquid or glassy phase in the final microstructure differs from material to material, depends on processing method, and may have a dramatic effect on final properties. Perhaps the most important feature of this distribution is the thin liquid film along grain boundaries, retained as amorphous or glassy films after cooling. These films are characterized by being nearly constant in thickness along the boundary and on the order of one nanometer in thickness. It is increasingly accepted that they represent an equilibrium separation between grains due to a balance between attractive and repulsive forces (Clarke, 1987). Two examples where these minute microstructural features have a significant influence on final properties include creep behavior in Si3N4 (Raj, 1993) and electronic conductivity in ruthenate thick film resistors (Chiang, et al., 1994).
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Ackler, H.D., Chiang, YM. (1998). Thin Intergranular Films In Ceramics: Thermodynamic Calculations and Model Experiments in the System Titania-Silica. In: Tomsia, A.P., Glaeser, A.M. (eds) Ceramic Microstructures. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5393-9_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5393-9_12
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