Synthesis of CuAlO2 ceramics using sol-gel

Sol-gel as a versatile method for the preparation of oxide ceramics was used to prepare the delafossite-structured p-type CuAlO2 ceramics. The results showed that mechanical milling is necessary to prepare pure CuAlO2 ceramics using short annealing periods, and the particle size of CuAlO2 ceramics prepared from the powders with mechanical milling procedures was smaller than that derived from powders without mechanical milling. The prepared CuAlO2 ceramics behaved like semiconductors and the thermally activated energy near room temperature was about 0.175 eV.