Surface grain size and texture after annealing ground zirconia

The surface microstructure induced after grinding and annealing 3 mol% Y2O3 stabilized tetragonal zirconia was investigated in a range of annealing temperatures between 1200 and 1600 °C. For annealing temperatures close to 1200 °C, a surface nano-grain size layer was formed, while annealing at 1600 °C induced a very high fraction of surface grains of size and yttrium content higher than the bulk. The use of TEM-EBSD observation along the surface of the specimen ground and annealed at 1200 °C also revealed the existence of a (0 1 0) preferential orientation.