Fabrication of Y2O3 transparent ceramics by pressure-assisted alcoholic slip casting

This paper presents the successful homogeneous processing of Y2O3 green compacts by pressure-assisted alcoholic slip casting (PASC) method for the preparation of high-quality Y2O3 transparent ceramics. The optimal Y2O3 alcoholic slurry with 1.5 wt% polyethyleneimine as the dispersant and the solid load of 30.69 vol% was employed for PASC. Compared to dry-pressing green compact, PASC-prepared green compact exhibits high homogeneity and sinterability with less microstructural defects, such as large pores or particle agglomeration. Based on these advantages, we successfully prepared transparent Y2O3 ceramic by simply vacuum sintering with low porosity, excellent optical homogeneity, and high in-line transmittance of 80.4% at the wavelength of 600 nm.