Densification and grain growth of microwave-sintered yttrium iron garnet

• Main Authors: Ashri, M. F., Rejab, N. A., Ahmad, Z. A., Abdullah, N. S., Badarulzaman, N. A., Mat, R. A. A. R., Ali, W. F. F. W.
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: T Technology (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/89144/; https://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5089406
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

The presences of unwanted phases such as yttrium iron perovskite (YIP) in yttrium iron garnet (YIG) ceramics have limiting the utilization of YIG in the wireless communication domain. The densification and grain growth of yttrium iron garnet (YIG) were systematically studied to produce highly densified YIG via microwave sintering. The phase present in the sample (to determine the purity) was characterized by using XRD meanwhile VPSEM was used to observe the increment of average grain size either by varying temperature or time. The highest grain size obtained when the sample was being sintered at 1450 °C for 2 hours which is 15.7μm. The highest material density obtained using Archimedes principle was 97.9% of that of theoretical density (ρ theory ). Therefore, the results suggested that a highly densified YIG (ρ theory of ∼98%) could be successfully obtained by sintering the sample for 8 hours at 1420 °C.