Laser sintering of carbon nanotube-reinforced ceramic nanocomposites

The fabrication of carbon nanotube (CNT)-reinforced ceramic nanocomposites through laser sintering has been rarely studied, and the fabrication feasibility has been rarely tested. Laser sintering is a flexible, localized and high-precision process, which can also potentially produce coatings or parts with complicated shapes and/or spatially controlled compositions. Therefore, compared with other technologies laser sintering has its own advantages. Experimental investigations reported in this paper have confirmed the feasibility of fabricating CNT-reinforced ceramic nanocomposites through laser sintering of ceramic nanoparticles and CNTs. The studies show that laser sintering can induce the agglomeration of ceramic nanoparticles into a relatively more continuous ceramic phase, and during the sintering process CNTs are well preserved without any obvious quality degradation, and they are also bonded with the ceramic phase after laser sintering.