Evidence of nanograin cluster coalescence in spark plasma sintered α-Al2O3

The aim of this study is to elucidate the coarsening kinetics involved during densification of fine-grained pure alpha-alumina by spark plasma sintering. Low temperature and short dwell time sintering conditions were used to preserve the nanocrystalline structure of the starting commercial powder (about 50 nm). Notwithstanding the above, submicron grain coarsened microstructures have been developed. The microstructure evolution of alumina under different sintering conditions points to a nanograin rotation densification mechanism as being responsible for the fast grain growth observed. (C) 2013 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.