Yttrium aluminum garnet (Y3Al5O12) nanopowders synthesized by the chemical method

The homogeneously dispersed, less agglomerated YAG nanopowders are synthesized by the citrate-gel method followed by low-temperature self-propagating combustion reaction, using Y2O3, Al(NO3)3?9H2O and citric acid as starting materials. This method effectively solves the problems caused by solid-state reaction at high temperature and the hard ag-glomerates brought by the chemical precipitation method. The powders are characterized by TG-DTA, XRD, FT-IR and TEM respectively. The experiments show that the forming temperature of YAG crystal phase is 850°C and the pseudo-YAG crystalline appears during the calcination and transforms to pure YAG at 1050°C. The powders with sizes less than 50 nm are observed by TEM micrography, which is consistent with the result calculated by Scherrer’s formula. The powders consist of single grains.