Isothermal sintering effects on phase separation and grain growth in yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal

The isothermal sintering behavior in 3 mol% yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (Y-TZP) was investigated to clarify phase-separation and grain-growth mechanisms during sintering. In the Y-TZP sintered at 1300°C for 2 h, the Y³⁺ ion distribution of grain interiors in Y-TZP was nearly homogeneous, but Y³⁺ ions segregated along grain boundaries within a width of about 10 nm. When the holding time increased from 2 to 50 h, the cubic-phase regions with high Y³⁺ ion concentrations were clearly formed in the grain interiors adjacent to the grain boundaries, though the average grain size hardly increased. This result shows that the cubic-phase regions were formed without grain growth, which can be explained by the grain-boundary segregation-induced phase transformation mechanism. In the Y-TZP sintered at 1500°C for 2 h, the cubic-phase regions were already formed, and both of the cubic-phase region and average grain size increased with increasing holding time. This grain-growth behavior can be interpreted by the third-power growth low derived based on the solute drag theory, which indicates that the cubic-phase regions do not effectively act as the pinning points.