Method of Fabricating Ceria-Stabilized Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystals

Most zirconia-based toughened ceramics need specialized processes to achieve their desired properties. In this paper, we report the fabrication of toughened ceria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal by conventional processing, i.e., ball milling and cold-pressing followed by sintering. We believe that ball milling works here because a somewhat coarser particle size is actually beneficial in this case. Although the samples were not fully dense (they need not be), a composition of ZrO₂-12 mol% CeO₂ yielded a fracture toughness value of 14.1 MPa·m^1/2. This is comparable to values reported for materials processed by specialized techniques and can be rationalized in terms of R-curve behavior.