Fabrication of dense zirconia-toughened alumina ceramics through a stereolithography-based additive manufacturing

We report a novel approach to fabricate dense zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) ceramics with excellent properties via an additive manufacturing process based on stereolithography. The XRD patterns show the ZTA sample consists of alpha-Al2O3 and t-ZrO2 with the dominance of alpha-Al2O3. The zirconia grain with the average size of 0.35 mu m is small enough to trigger the toughening behavior of zirconia in the ZTA. The prepared ceramics showed a density, Vickers hardness, bending strength, and fracture toughness of 4.26 g/cm(3), 17.76 GPa, 530.25 MPa, and 5.72 MPa m(1/2), respectively. These properties are comparable to those for ceramics obtained through conventional ceramic processing.