THE EFFECT OF DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES OF SINTERING ADDITIVES ON MICROWAVE SINTERED SILICON NITRIDE CERAMICS

Silicon nitride requires the use of susceptive additives for microwave liquid phase sintering due to the material's low dielectric loss. In this article, we report the effect of complex dielectric properties of two compositions of sintering aids on 2.45 GHz microwave sintered Si3N4 with respect to power absorption, temperature distribution and densification behavior. The temperature dependent dielectric properties were measured from 25 degrees C to 1400 degrees C using a conventional cavity perturbation technique. Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) electromagnetic simulations coupled with a thermal solver was used to predict the microwave power absorption and the corresponding temperature evolution inside the samples. The additive with higher dielectric loss (4 wt% MgO, 6 wt% Y2O3 and 2.5 wt% ZrO2) produces a greater sintered density than the lower loss additive (4 wt% MgO and 6 wt% Y2O3) or pure Si3N4. Although microwave loss at temperatures below 600 degrees C is insignificant with or without the additives, the loss begins to increase at higher temperatures when the additives are present and has a strong upward trend above 1000 degrees C. Above 1200 degrees C the sample containing ZrO2 exhibited the greatest loss. Numerical simulations at the peak sintering temperature show greater microwave power absorption and higher temperature in the sample with the highest loss additive. The simulation results correlate to the difference in densification behavior observed. The simulation was also useful because the material temperature was not accurately provided by optical pyrometer measurements of the crucible sample holder.