Microstructural variations in SiC ceramics sintered with AIN-Y2O3

In this work, SiC ceramics were prepared by liquid phase sintering using 10 wt.% of AlN and Y2O3 mixtures in the proportion of 4:1 and 2:3 as additives Sintering was done in a graphite resistance heated furnace at 2080 degrees C under 0.2 MPa N-2 atmosphere for 1 h. Part of the samples was further heat-treated at 2000 degrees C for 4h to allow grain growth. The microstructures of the sintered samples were analyzed using polished and plasma etched surfaces. Furthermore, relative densities, weight loss during sintering and SiC-polytype distributions are reported.