Effect of additives on the sintering of amorphous nano-sized silicon nitride powders

Amorphous nano-sized silicon nitride powders were sintered by liquid phase sintering. The influences of the additives of Y2O3 and Al2O3 prepared by two different ways, the polyacrylamide gel method and the precipitation method, were investigated. The grain sizes of the additives prepared by the first method were finer than those of prepared by the latter method. When sintered at the same temperature, 1700A degrees C, the average grain size of the silicon nitride is 0.3 mu m for the sample with the former additives, which is much finer than the one with the latter additives. The density of additives prepared by precipitation method is clearly lower than those of prepared by polyacrylamide gel method.