Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Yttrium Iron Garnet Nano Powders for Low Temperature Sintering

Abstract

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG) nano powders have been successfully synthesized by a chemical co-precipitation plus microwave heating method. The particle sizes of the synthesized YIG powders ranged from 15 nm to 30 nm. Their heating behaviors indicated that small YIG nano crystallites in the synthesized powders started to melt and form liquid phase at a low temperature about 947°C. By using the synthesized powders as the starting materials, the dense YIG ceramics were sintered at the temperature of about 1050–1100°C, which was much lower than the sintering temperature for the powder derived from traditional solid reactions. The liquid phase from melting of small particles promoted the diffusion and re-crystallization, resulting in the low temperature sintering of YIG ceramics.