In Situ Toughened α-Sialon Ceramics Doped with Lutecia and Ytterbia

Abstract

Ytterbia and Lutecia were adopted to stabilize α-sialon ceramics during a two-step hot press sintering, respectively. Although Yb3+ and Lu3+ possess the similar small ion size (0.86 Å and 0.85 Å) as two adjacent rare-earth elements, Yb- and Lu-α-sialon ceramics present very different microstructure and properties. Yb-α-sialon ceramic is fully composed of α-sialon phase without any secondary phase. The ceramic incorporated with Lu2O3 also consists of α-sialon phase, but a trace amount of intergranular phase J′ (Lu4Si2-xAlxO7+xN2-x) still remains at the boundary. Microstructure observation indicates the fully equiaxial grain morphology of Yb-α-sialon ceramic. However, elongated grains appear in the Lu-α-sialon ceramic, coexisting with small equiaxed grains. Owing to the almost full α-sialon phase assemblage, both ceramics present high hardness with the value of over 21 GPa. Lu-α-sialon ceramic possesses good toughness, which is attributed to the elongated grains assisting the facilitation of toughening mechanism. The equiaxied grain morphology results in a comparatively lower toughness for Yb-α-sialon ceramic.