X-ray microstructural characterization of Y-PSZ (5 mol%) nanocrystalline powder samples

Abstract

The present work is concerned with the microstructural analysis of ceramic materials by means of X-ray diffraction techniques. In view of the interest in yttria-partially stabilized zirconia (Y-PSZ) as a high performance ceramic, we have prepared nanocrystalline powders of Y-PSZ (5 mol%) by a low-temperature synthesis technique. We have used the Rietveld method in order to obtain accurate phase proportions of the samples. Then, we have applied conventional line-broadening methods (variance, integral breadth and Warren-Averbach) in the determination of quantities such as the mean crystallite size and r.m.s. strain. These results are compared with those derived from a more sophisticated approach, which involves the use of the regularization techniques in the solution of the linear integral equations arising from the kinematical theory of X-ray diffraction.