Fabrication of TiO2 components by Fields Activated Sintering Technology (FAST)

Abstract The ceramic materials exhibit many intriguing properties relating to higher melting temperature and good thermomechanical properties. In present work, a newly developed Fields Activated Sintering Technology (FAST), named as Micro-forming Fields Activated Sintering Technology (Micro-FAST), has been applied to successfully sinter the TiO 2 samples. The influence of sintering temperature and heating schedule has been investigated. Based on the analysis of the relative density, grain size and microstructure evolution of TiO 2 samples, the densification process could be divided into three stages: I) Preheating period: densification by particle rearrangement mainly driven by the external pressure; II) Rapid heating period: rapid densification by fast atomic diffusion under the coupling effects of stress and temperature; III) Final heating period: the densification further proceeds by slower atomic diffusion. High density (up to 96.95%), fine grain sizes and direct grain-to-grain contact could be obtained by Micro-FAST to sinter TiO 2 bodies without use of any sintering aid. These results should encourage systematic exploration of Micro-FAST in engineering applications.