Preparation of La2NiMnO6 Double-perovskite Ceramics by Plasma Activated Sintering

La2NiMnO6 (LNMO) double-perovskite ceramics are normally prepared by the conventional pressureless sintering technique, which is difficult to produce dense structure and usually needs high sintering temperature as well as long sintering period. In this study, highly-dense La2NiMnO6 ceramics with good performance were prepared by a novel Plasma Activated Sintering (PAS) method. The influence of PAS parameters, including sintering temperature and pressure, on crystalline phase, microstructure, relative density and dielectric properties of the LNMO ceramics were systematically studied by the means of XRD, SEM, Archimedes method, and impedance analyzer. The results showed that the crystallinity and grain size of the LNMO ceramics increased with the increase of sintering temperature, but the impurity phases might emerge if the sintering temperature further increased above 1000 degrees C. The sintering pressure had little effect on crystalline phase, while the relative density of the LNMO ceramics could be effectively enhanced with the sintering pressure increasing. LNMO ceramics in single orthorhombic structure with relative density of 92% and giant dielectric constant (similar to 10(6)) were successfully obtained at the optimum PAS conditions, i.e., sintering temperature of 975-1000 degrees C and sintering pressure of 80 MPa. Compared to the traditional pressureless sintering, LNMO ceramics with dense structure could be obtained by PAS at a relative lower sintering temperature (reduced by 400-500 degrees C) with a shorter sintering period (reduced by 2-20 h), which should be attributed to the coupling effect of temperature and stress as well as activation during the sintering process.