High-temperature grain boundary sliding behavior and grain boundary energy in cubic zirconia bicrystals

Misorientation dependence of grain boundary energy and grain boundary sliding at high temperature were examined in cubic zirconia bicrystals with [1 1 0] symmetric tilt boundaries, which were fabricated by diffusion bonding method from two cubic zirconia single crystals. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy observation revealed that the grain boundary in cubic zirconia bicrystals was clean and atomically sharp without any void or grain boundary amorphous layer. Grain boundary energy of the tilt boundaries was estimated from the dihedral angles on thermal grooved surface measured with atomic force microscope techniques. The misorientation dependence of the grain boundary energy in cubic zirconia bicrystals shows similar tendency to that of fcc metal such as aluminum and copper. Grain boundary sliding associated with intragranular dislocation slip in cubic zirconia bicrystals was observed for all specimens. The amount of the grain boundary sliding showed a good correlation with the misorientation factor of each boundary. Grain boundary migration also took place accompanying with the grain boundary sliding. The observed grain boundary sliding and migration can be explained based on a dislocation mechanism for sliding which is based on the movement of lattice dislocations along the grain boundary by a combination of climb and glide.