Dynamic shock compaction of a ZrO₂–RuO₂ electronic nanocomposite: toward functionally graded materials

Abstract An electronic ZrO₂–RuO₂ nanocomposite was fabricated by dynamic compaction (DC) at 1.5 GPa resulting in a maximum relative density of 88% in the material. The DC process formed pristine elongated conical‐shaped compacts 3 cm in length. The compacts retained their original nanometer‐sized grains (∼20 nm) of the original powder from which it was prepared, marking the densest RuO₂‐based nanocomposite to date. A change by a remarkable factor of 10⁷ in electrical conductance was observed for two separate specimens, one processed by DC (σ = 1.1 × 10^–4 S cm^–1) and the other by conventional pressureless sintering (σ = 2.1 × 10³ S cm^–1) both obtained from the same starting nanopowder and thus with a similar concentration of conductor phase at 10 mol% RuO₂. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)