The effects of sintering conditions on the properties of Ga-doped zinc oxide ceramics

Abstract

Gallium-doped zinc oxide ceramics with high density were sintered by conventional solid-state reaction method. The phase, fracture morphology, conductive properties and density of the samples were tested by XRD, SEM, Hall testing and Archimedes method, respectively. Increasing of the sintering temp and sintering time does not affect the characteristic peaks belong to lead–zinc mine structure of zinc oxide polycrystal, but it has a great influence on the samples' density and the size of grains. The density first increases with heat preservation temp and hour then decreases, the maximum value obtained is 5.54 g cm⁻³. Micrographs clearly shown that increase the heating temp is beneficial to the growth of the grain. The measured results have shown that the optimum sintering conditions of Ga-doped zinc ceramics are a sintering temperature of 1325°C and a sintering time of 4 hours. The whole process indicates that the lowest resistivity of Ga-doped zinc samples is 2.282 × 10⁻³ Ω·cm.

Keywords:

• GZO
• Conductive properties
• Sintering temp
• Sintering time