Effects of time, temperature, and pressure on the microstructure of spark plasma sintered silicon carbide

Silicon carbide is a ceramic material with useful properties that have many potential advanced applications. Achieving a range of desired properties is possible by carefully controlling the microstructure, which itself can be controlled by the spark plasma sintering conditions. We varied three sintering conditions and characterized the resulting microstructure. Our samples did not reach full density, and the densification and grain growth of nano-sized silicon carbide powder did not follow traditional trends. Instead, both features increased simultaneously. We conclude that additional experimentation is necessary to obtain fully dense samples and to characterize the microstructure of nanometer-sized silicon carbide powder affected by spark plasma sintering conditions.