Cold sintering and microwave dielectric properties of dense HBO2‐II ceramics

Abstract

AbstractHBO2‐II ceramics were prepared by cold sintering with 10wt% dehydrated ethanol as the transient liquid phase. When the processing temperature is 30°C, the relative density of the mechanically robust HBO2‐II ceramics increases from 77.5% to 84.5% with increasing the uniaxial pressure from 200 to 500 MPa. It changes less than 0.2% for higher pressure up to 700 MPa. Under a constant uniaxial pressure of 500 MPa, the relative density further increases to 94.7% for the processing temperature of 120°C. HBO2‐I is observed as the secondary phase when the processing temperature is 150°C. In comparison, the compacts prepared in the absence of ethanol are fragile, and the relative densities are 78.5%‐84.5% for the processing temperatures of 30‐120°C and uniaxial pressure of 500 MPa. It is indicated that ethanol promotes the densification significantly through the dissolution‐precipitation mechanism. The permittivity increases with increasing the processing temperature, while the Qf value decreases. The optimal properties with the relative density of 94.7%, εr = 4.21, Qf = 47 500 GHz, and τf = −70.0 ppm/°C were obtained in the single‐phase HBO2‐II ceramics cold sintered at 120°C under 500 MPa for 10 minutes. The relative density and Qf value are significantly higher than those of the HBO2‐II ceramic prepared by sintering the H3BO3 compact at 180°C for 2 hours (70.3% and 32 700 GHz, respectively). The results indicate that the nonaqueous solvent can also be used as the transient liquid phase for cold sintering, so that more materials that are unstable or insoluble in water can be densified by this method.