A new and highly active sintering additive: SiO2 for highly-transparent AlON ceramic

In the present work, highly-transparent aluminum oxynitride (AlON) ceramic has been fabricated by hot isostatic pressing sintering method. SiO2 was used for the first time as a sintering additive for producing highly-transparent AlON ceramics where it plays an effective role to promote the densification during hot isostatic pressing sintering. Furthermore, the optical property of the AlON ceramic is not sensitive to the change of additive concentration when SiO2 was used. All the 3.5 mm thick samples doped with 0.15 wt% similar to 0.55 wt% SiO2 showed a high inline transmittance above 86% at 2000 nm. The effects of SiO2 on the phase, lattice parameter, microstructures and hardness of AlON have been investigated in details. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.