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Hot Isostatic Pressing Ceramics
Hot Isostatic Pressing Ceramics
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
2è (deg)
1081
of Si2 ON2 (Fig. 5a). In Si3 N4 SiC composite, very
fine, homogeneous microstructure is obtained, as
indicated in Fig. 5b. The average grain size is about
50 nm and the morphology of the grains is ball-like.
In this composite, grain growth is greatly depressed
by both the heterophase compositions and HIP
conditions, which are at relatively low sintering
temperature at high pressure.
Fig. 6 shows the HREM image of the Si2 ON2
Si3 N4 SiC composites. A large amount of residual
amorphous phase is present at the grain boundaries
in this composite. EDS analysis indicated that the
main composition of this grain-boundary phase is
silicon and oxygen, as shown in Fig. 7. This result
implies that Si C N amorphous nano-powder may
react with the absorbed oxygen and partly form Si2
ON2 , as mentioned previously, and the others
remain as amorphous phase in the grain boundaries,
which coexist with Si3 N4 and SiC to form the
composite. Fig. 8 shows the HREM image of
Si3 N4 SiC nano-composite. No residual amorphous Figure 8 HREM image of Si3 N4 SiC composite showing the clean
phase was found either at the grain boundary or at grain boundaries and triple-grain junction.
the triple-grain junction. This is because the excess
carbon content in the precursor Si C N powder, as
listed in Table I, may remove the oxide during the oxidized powder may be described by the following
pretreatment. The reactions between carbon and equations:
Si O Si 3C 2SiC CO (1a)
4N Si O 5C SiC Si3 N4 4CO (1b)
C Si O C SiC CO (1c)
The reaction product of CO in Equations 1a – c may
be substituted by CO2. Either way, in this process,
part of the oxidized amorphous nano-powder may be
purified and crystallized to SiC and Si3 N4 .
Not only can carbon react with the absorbed
oxygen in the Si C N lattice during pretreatment,
but, it can also react with the oxide, SiO2 during the
HIP process. In addition, carbon may also play an
important role in separating particles during crystal-
lization from amorphous Si C N nano-powder to the
nano-powder composed of Si3 N4 and SiC, so that
grain growth is deeply depressed. The crystallized
Si3 N4 and SiC powders will retain their original
Figure 6 HREM image of HIP Si2 ON2 Si3 N4 SiC composite show-
grain size after the HIP process, as indicated in Fig.
ing a large amount of amorphous phase in the grain boundary.
5b, and therefore, the Si3 N4 SiC nano nano com-
posite is obtained.
In summary, nano-structured monolithic SiC
Si
ceramics can be prepared by hot isostatic pressing.
At 1850 8C, 200 MPa pressure for 1 h, dense and
10 homogeneous microstructure with a grain size of
about 100 nm can be obtained. The starting powder
(Counts s21)
1083