Highly texturing β-sialon via strong magnetic field alignment

This paper reports the texturing behavior of β-sialon by strong magnetic field alignment (SMFA) during slip casting, followed by reaction pressureless sintering, using either α or β-Si₃N ₄, Al₂O₃, and AlN as the starting materials. It is found that the β-Si₃N₄ crystal exhibits a substantially stronger orientation ability than the α-Si₃N ₄ crystal regardless of the Si₃N₄ raw powders in the magnetic field of 12 T. The β-raw powder produces a highly a, b-axis-oriented β-Si₃N₄ green body with a Lotgering orientation factor of up to 0.97. During sintering, the β-raw powder allows the a, b-axis-oriented β-sialon to retain the Lotgering orientation factor similar to and even higher than that of β-Si₃N₄ in the green body. In contrast, the α-raw powder leads to a faster transformation rate of α/β-Si₃N₄ to β-sialon but a substantially lower texture in β-sialon. The results indicate that the use of the β-raw powder is more efficient for producing highly textured β-sialon via SMFA than that of the α-raw powder as well as the prolonged sintering.