Flash phenomena in lime-stabilised zirconia oxide ion conductor

Flash sintering is a novel technique that allows a decrease in the sintering time (from hours to seconds) and furnace temperature for the densification of ceramics. In order to find out if calcia-stabilised zirconia (15mol% CaO) can be flashed sintered, samples were first characterised by XRD and impedance spectroscopy, to confirm that the powder was single phase cubic and pellets were ionically conducting. During the flash experiments, the samples showed two of the “flash event” characteristics: increased conductivity and emission of light, but not densification. This shows that is possible to have the luminescent aspect of flash without sintering, as suggested by Raj.