This month I was focused on finishing writing of a publication. It is entitled “Investigation of grain boundaries geometry and pores morphology in dense and porous cubic zirconia”. Below I attach an abstract:
Three-dimensional orientation microscopy was used for visualization of grain boundaries geometry and pores morphology in cubic zirconia stabilized with 8mol% of yttria. Set of four samples sintered at different conditions was investigated. Specimens were characterized by EDS and XRD techniques showing that they were entirely composed of cubic phase. Investigations of boundaries and pores structure were carried in dual-beam scanning electron microscope. For each studied sample, dimensions of the region of interest were 10μm in each direction. Analysis of grain boundaries networks reconstructed from inverse pole figure maps revealed strong dependence between grain boundary density and samples preparation parameters. Sintering also affects pores size and their distribution. The total amount of analyzed grains varied from 13 to 190 and calculated volume of cavities was changing between 0.01% and 25%. Present paper shows the capabilities of three dimensional crystallographic orientation analysis applied to ceramics dedicated to solid oxide fuel cells production.