Alignment of titania whisker by colloidal filtration in a high magnetic field

Whisker alignment is one possible way in order to improve the properties of whisker reinforced materials. Susceptibility is very small in diamagnetic ceramics such as titania and alumina, etc.; therefore, the effects of a high-magnetic field on these ceramics had been generally neglected. Recently, superconducting magnet technologies have been developed and used for applications for such feeble magnetic materials. We demonstrate that the alignment of titania whiskers can be controlled by colloidal filtration of a well-dispersed suspension of the whiskers in a high magnetic field (10T) when the direction of the magnetic field was perpendicular to the direction of the fluid.