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1738230 
Journal Article 
Making nanostructured ceramics from micrometer-sized powders via grain refinement during SPS sintering 
Chen, K; Zhang, X; Wang, Hui; Zhang, L; Zhu, J; Yang, F; An, L 
2008 
Yes 
Journal of the American Ceramic Society
ISSN: 0002-7820 
91 
8 
2475-2480 
WOS:000258379300005 
In this paper, we have demonstrated that dense bulk nanostructured ceramics can be synthesized from micrometer-sized powders by using an electrical field-activated sintering process. A dense Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3-PbTiO3 ceramic with grain sizes of 20-100 nm was obtained from the starting powder of 1 to 10 mu m. Structural and property analysis confirmed that the entire specimen is composed of nano-sized grains. The significant microstructural refining is attributed to a pulsed electric field-induced thermo-mechanical fatigue process, which in situ "shattered" the large particles into nano-sized grains during sintering. An advantage of this technique over the previous ones is that it avoids the usage of ultrafine nanometer-sized powders, which are difficult to process and mass produce in an economic and consistent way. In principle, the process demonstrated here can be applied to other material systems.