Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol.99, No.10, 3220-3225, 2016
Aqueous Slip Casting of Transparent Aluminum Oxynitride
Highly transparent Aluminum oxynitride (AlON) body has been produced using aqueous slip casting technique. High-purity alumina and AlN were used as raw materials for the synthesis of single-phase AlON powder. As-synthesized AlON powder was surface modified to enable the AlON powders resistant to hydrolysis in water during aqueous slip casting. High solid loaded aqueous AlON slip was prepared for casting followed by drying and sintering to produce transparent AlON. Phase formation and stability was characterized by XRD, pH, and viscosity measurements. AlON powders before and after surface treatments were characterized. Sintered transparent AlON samples were characterized for their mechanical, microstructural, and optical properties. Sintered and polished AlON produced in this study has shown inline transparency up to 80% between 0.22 and 6 mu m wavelength region.