Fabrication of c-axis oriented polycrystalline ZnO by using a rotating magnetic field and following sintering

We succeeded in fabricating c-axis (00l) oriented ZnO ceramics by using a rotating magnetic field and a subsequent sintering treatment. The degree of orientation in the green compact was about 0.5 along (00l) on the Lotgering scale. The degree of orientation increased to 0.99 after sintering at 1573 K. Particles can also be oriented in a static magnetic field, but along the direction of the a-axis or a,b-axes (h00), (hk0). These results show that selected axes can be oriented by controlling the magnetic field. Control of the crystal form in microstructures is expected to result in improvements in and better miniaturization of functional ceramics.