Abstract
Annealing and firing in wet hydrogen are widely used steps in the processing alumina.ceramic insulators that may affect their dielectric breakdown strengths (DBS). In this study, the effects of annealing (at 1300 °C for 7 h) and firing in wet hydrogen on the DBS of alumina ceramics (all sintered at 1650 °C) were studied, and the underlying mechanisms were analyzed by material characterizations. Annealing reduced the DBS of the 95% alumina ceramics due to the inter-granular phase crystallization, and the reduction in the DBS could be correlated to the reduction in mechanical strength. In contrast, annealing improved the DBS of the 99% alumina ceramic without intergranular phase transformation. Firing in wet hydrogen at 1500 °C caused the DBS increment, which can be ascribed to the reduction in the concentrations of point defects and electrical carriers.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Carter CB, Norton MG. Ceramic Materials. New York, USA: Springer New York, 2013.
Park CW, Yoon DY. Effects of SiO2, CaO2, and MgO additions on the grain growth of alumina. J Am Ceram Soc 2004, 83: 2605–2609.
Baik S, White CL. Anisotropic calcium segregation to the surface of Al2O3. J Am Ceram Soc 1987, 70: 682–688.
Frueh T, Marker C, Kupp ER, et al. Powder chemistry effects on the sintering of MgO-doped specialty Al2O3. J Am Ceram Soc 2018, 101: 2739–2751.
Powell-Dogan CA, Heuer AH. Microstructure of 96% alumina ceramics: I, characterization of the as-sintered materials. J Am Ceram Soc 1990, 73: 3670–3676.
Powell-Dogan CA, Heuer AH. Microstructure of 96% alumina ceramics: II, crystallization of high-magnesia boundary glasses. J Am Ceram Soc 1990, 73: 3677–3683.
Powell-Dogan CA, Heuer AH. Microstructure of 96% alumina ceramics: III, crystallization of high-calcia boundary glasses. J Am Ceram Soc 1990, 73: 3684–3691.
Liebault J, Vallayer J, Goeuriot D, et al. How the trapping of charges can explain the dielectric breakdown performance of alumina ceramics. J Eur Ceram Soc 2001, 21: 389–397.
Touzin M, Goeuriot D, Guerret-Piécourt C, et al. Alumina based ceramics for high-voltage insulation. J Eur Ceram Soc 2010, 30: 805–817.
Pappis J, Kingery WD. Electrical properties of single-crystal and polycrystalline alumina at high temperatures. J Am Ceram Soc 1961, 44: 459–464.
Miranzo P, Tabernero L, Moya JS, et al. Effect of sintering atmosphere on the densification and electrical properties of alumina. J Am Ceram Soc 1990, 73: 2119–2121.
Damamme G, Le Gressus C, de Reggi AS. Space charge characterization for the 21th century. IEEE Trans Dielect Electr Insul 1997, 4: 558–584.
Jaitly N, Sudarshan T, Dougal R, et al. Degradation due to wet hydrogen firing on the high-voltage performance of alumina insulators in vacuum applications. IEEE Trans Elect Insul 1987, EI-22: 447–452.
Medvedovski E, Peltsman M. Low pressure injection moulding mass production technology of complex shape advanced ceramic components. Adv Appl Ceram 2012, 111: 333–344.
Gorjan L, Dakskobler A, Kosmač T. Strength evolution of injection-molded ceramic parts during wick-debinding. J Am Ceram Soc 2012, 95: 188–193.
ASTM D149-97a(2004). Test method for dielectric breakdown voltage and dielectric strength of solid electrical insulating materials at commercial power frequencies. ASTM International. DOI https://doi.org/10.1520/d0149-97ar04.
Block B, Kim Y, Shetty DK. Dielectric breakdown of polycrystalline alumina: A weakest-link failure analysis. J Am Ceram Soc 2013, 96: 3430–3439.
Neusel C, Jelitto H, Schmidt D, et al. Thickness-dependence of the breakdown strength: Analysis of the dielectric and mechanical failure. J Eur Ceram Soc 2015, 35: 113–123.
Carabajar S, Olagnon C, Fantozzi G, et al. Relations between electrical breakdown field and mechanical properties of ceramics. In Proceedings of 1995 Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena, Virginia Beach, VA, USA, 1995: 278–281.
Malec D, Bley V, Talbi F, et al. Contribution to the understanding of the relationship between mechanical and dielectric strengths of Alumina. J Eur Ceram Soc 2010, 30: 3117–3123.
Tomaszewski H. Effect of the intergranular phase structure on the thermomechanical properties of alumina ceramics. Ceram Int 1988, 14: 93–99.
Padture NP, Chan HM. Improved flaw tolerance in alumina containing 1 vol% anorthite via crystallization of the intergranular glass. J Am Ceram Soc 1992, 75: 1870–1875.
Jouini Z, Malec D, Valdez-Nava Z. Effect of mechanical prestress on the dielectric strength of alumina. In Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Dielectrics (ICD), Montpellier, France, 2016.
Beauchamp EK. Effect of microstructure on pulse electrical strength of MgO. J Am Ceram Soc 1971, 54: 484–487.
German RM, Suri P, Park SJ. Review: liquid phase sintering. J Mater Sci 2009, 44: 1–39.
Blaise G. Charge localization and transport in disordered dielectric materials. J Electrost 2001, 50: 69–89.
Will FG, de Lorenzi HG, Janora KH. Conduction mechanism of single-crystal alumina. J Am Ceram Soc 1992, 75: 295–304.
Talbi F, Lalam F, Malec D. DC conduction of Al2O3 under high electric field. J Phys D: Appl Phys 2007, 40: 3803–3806.
Neusel C, Jelitto H, Schneider GA. Electrical conduction mechanism in bulk ceramic insulators at high voltages until dielectric breakdown. J Appl Phys 2015, 117: 154902.
Schneider GA. A Griffith type energy release rate model for dielectric breakdown under space charge limited conductivity. J Mech Phys Solids 2013, 61: 78–90.
Fischer PK, Schneider GA. Dielectric breakdown toughness from filament induced dielectric breakdown in borosilicate glass. J Eur Ceram Soc 2018, 38: 4476–4482.
Atlas LM, Firestone RF. Application of thermoluminescence and reflectance methods to study of lattice defects in alumina ceramics. J Am Ceram Soc 1960, 43: 476–483.
Lagerlof KPD, Grimes RW. The defect chemistry of sapphire (α-Al2O3). Acta Mater 1998, 46: 5689–5700.
Kozakiewicz AG, Davidson AT, Derry TE. VUV optical absorption in sapphire crystals following implantation with 100 keV O+, Al+ and Cr+ ions. Nucl Instruments Methods Phys Res Sect B: Beam Interactions Mater Atoms 2002, 191: 582–585.
Huang Y, Chen Y, Li X, et al. Enhanced dielectric breakdown strength in Ni2O3 modified Al2O3-SiO2-TiO2 based dielectric ceramics. J Eur Ceram Soc 2018, 38: 3861–3866.
Yao MW, Xiao RH, Peng Y, et al. The influence of titanium doping on the electric properties of amorphous alumina films prepared by sol.gel technology. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 2015, 74: 39–44.
Haddour L, Mesrati N, Goeuriot D, et al. Relationships between microstructure, mechanical and dielectric properties of different alumina materials. J Eur Ceram Soc 2009, 29: 2747–2756.
Zhang T, Lei YJ, Yin J, et al. Effects of pores on dielectric breakdown of alumina ceramics under AC electric field. Ceram Int 2019, 45: 13951–13957.
Acknowledgements
The study was financially supported by the Science Development Foundation of China Academy of Engineering Physics (2014A0302012) and the Funding Support by Laboratory of Precision Manufacturing Technology, CAEP (ZD18001). The authors also gratefully acknowledge the assistance from Mr. Kang Peng in the DB test. We thank Dr. Yuefang Li for her help in writing the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecomm-ons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
About this article
Cite this article
Du, J., Tang, B., Liu, W. et al. Effects of annealing and firing in wet hydrogen on the dielectric breakdown strengths of alumina ceramics. J Adv Ceram 9, 173–182 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-019-0357-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-019-0357-x