Non-thermal effects of mm-wave sintering on the microstructure of zirconia ceramics

The potential of high frequency (30 GHz) microwave sintering has been investigated in field of sintering Y/sub 2/O/sub 3/ stabilized, tetragonal and cubic ZrO/sub 2/ in comparison to conventional sintering techniques. Therefore by electrophoretic deposition improved green bodies were produced with high green densities and homogeneous pore size distribution. After systematic variation of sintering parameters, the subsequent characterization of the sintered samples has been focused on the influence of microwave sintering to the microstructure evolution.