Characteristics of yttria stabilized tetragonal zirconia powder used in optical fiber connector ferrule

The tetragonal to monoclinic (t → m) phase transformation during low temperature (∼100 °C) degradation (LTD) of yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystals (Y-TZP) sintered in air at different temperatures was investigated. It is found that the sintering temperature affected the density, crystalline phase and microstructure of the sintered body, as well as the LTD behavior. Also, the onset time of the occurrence of m-ZrO2 in the annealed samples during LTD was longer than the unannealed samples.