Amorphous nano-sized silicon nitride powders were sintered by liquid phase sintering. The influences of the additives of Y2O3 and Al2O3 prepared by two different ways, the polyacrylamide gel method and the precipitation method, were investigated. The grain sizes of the additives prepared by the first method were finer than those of prepared by the latter method. When sintered at the same temperature, 1700 ℃, the average grain size of the silicon nitride is 0.3 μm for the sample with the former additives, which is much finer than the one with the latter additives. The density of additives prepared by precipitation method is clearly lower than those of prepared by polyacrylamide gel method.
Si2N2O/Si3N4 nanocomposites were fabricated by liquid phase sintering of amorphous nano-sized silicon nitride powders.The intragranular microstructure was observed and researched.Intragranular microstructure's β-Si3N4 was formed in Si2N2O matrix at the sintering temperature higher than 1650°C.It was discovered that intragranular microstructure could also disappear by transformation during high temperature annealing.Two possible mechanisms of the disappearance of intragranular microstructure were given.The effect of intragranular microstructure on main mechanical properties was also investigated.
LUO JunTing,LIU RiPing & QI Li State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology,College of Mechanical Engineering,Yanshan University,Qinhuangdao 066004,China
