advanced ceramics: Quick Facts

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Also Known As	technical ceramics • high-tech ceramics • engineering ceramics • fine ceramics • high-performance ceramics

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Steps in doctor blading, a tape-casting process employed in the production of ceramic films. Ceramic powder and solvent are mixed to form a slurry, which is treated with various additives and binders, homogenized, and then pumped directly to a tape-casting machine. There the slurry is continuously cast onto the surface of a moving carrier film. The edge of a smooth knife, generally called a doctor blade, spreads the slurry onto the carrier film at a specified thickness, thereby generating a flexible tape. Heat lamps gently evaporate the solvent, and the dry tape is peeled away from the carrier film and rolled onto a take-up reel for additional processing.

Opaque alumina. In alumina solidified without chemical sintering aids, pores are trapped within the grains, scattering light and contributing to the material's opacity.

Translucent alumina. With the use of magnesia as an aid during sintering (densifying under heat), light-scattering pores remain on the boundaries between grains and diffuse from the material, helping to make the alumina translucent.

Hot isostatic pressing (HIP), a pressure-assisted method for sintering advanced ceramic pieces. A ceramic piece is inserted into the heater compartment of a pressure vessel, which is evacuated of air by means of a vacuum pump. A thermocouple placed between the piece and the heating coils monitors the process temperature, which is regulated by an outside temperature controller. Overall electrical controls are monitored by a computerized power controller. An inert gas is fed under pressure into the vessel; at the end of the HIP cycle the gas is vented through an exhaust valve and the temperature is reduced by cold water pumped through a cooling jacket.

Figure 3: Barriers to slip in ceramic crystal structures. Beginning with the rock salt structure of magnesia (MgO; shown at left), in which there is a stable balance of positive and negative charges, two possible crystallographic planes show the difficulty of establishing stable imperfections. The (111) plane (shown at top) would contain atoms of identical charge; inserted as an imperfection into the crystal structure, such an imbalanced distribution of charges would not be able to establish a stable bond. The (100) plane (shown at bottom) would show a balance between positive and negative charges, but a shear stress applied along the middle of the plane would force identically charged atoms into proximity—again creating a condition unfavourable for stable bonding.

Figure 1: Resistance to cracking in transformation-toughened zirconia. In a ceramic composed of tetragonal zirconia dispersed in a zirconia matrix, the stress field advancing ahead of a propagating crack transforms the small tetragonal particles to larger monoclinic particles. The larger particles exert a crack-closing force in the process zone behind the crack tip, effectively resisting propagation of the crack.

Diagram of a multilayer capacitor with alternating thin layers of metal electrodes and ceramic dielectric inside a green plastic coating, and two wire leads extending outward.

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