Elaboration of translucent ZnO ceramics by spark plasma sintering under low temperature

Abstract ZnO is considered to be a potential ultrafast scintillator. In this work, nanosized ZnO powders were synthesized via thermal decomposition of precursors prepared by indirect-precipitation method from zinc nitrate and urea in aqueous solutions. The resultant single phased ZnO powder calcined at 600 °C for 2 h had a primary grain size of 66.0 nm with good dispersity showing excellent sinterability. Translucent ZnO ceramic with a relative density of 99.2% was fabricated successfully by spark plasma sintering at 850 °C for 10 min under the pressure of 80 MPa. The obtained ZnO ceramic exhibited fully dense and homogenous microstructure with average grain size of ∼1 μm, leading to an in-line optical transmission of 11.8% at a wavelength of 950 nm.