Ultrafast high-temperature sintering of yttria-stabilized zirconia in reactive N2 atmosphere

So far, ultrafast high-temperature sintering (UHS) has always been carried out in an inert environment. In the present work, we investigated UHS of 3YSZ in nitrogen and argon atmosphere showing that "the atmosphere matters". Highly densified samples can be obtained in both environments but densification and grain growth are significantly retarded in N-2. Moreover, the phase evolution is strongly atmosphere-dependent with the samples treated in Ar remaining tetragonal and those treated under N-2 progressively reducing their tetragonality, eventually converting into cubic zirconia and rock salt oxynitride. The results can be explained by the incorporation of nitrogen within the ZrO2 lattice. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy demonstrates that while the ionic bulk conductivity are marginally influenced by the sintering atmosphere, the grain boundaries' capacitive behavior strongly changes. After UHS under 30 A, excellent ionic conductors were obtained without substantial grain boundary-blocking effects.