Sintering behavior, microstructure, and thermal conductivity of dense AlN ceramics processed by spark plasma sintering with Y2O3–CaO–B additives.

We fabricated dense aluminum nitride ceramics by spark plasma sintering (SPS) with Y 2 O 3 –CaO–B sintering additives and evaluated their microstructures and thermal conductivities. Samples were perfectly densified after 5 min of SPS at 1650 or 1600 °C, or 10 min at 1550 °C and had fine microstructures. Thermal conductivities of the samples were 80–90 W m −1 K −1 and tended to increase with increasing sintering temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]