Study on Thermal Conductivity of SPS-Sintered Si₃N₄ Ceramics after Heat-Treatment

α-Si3N4 ceramics were sintered at a low temperature of 1773K by using a spark-plasma-sintering (SPS) method with different heating rates, and then they were further heat-treated at different temperatures from 1773K to 2273K, to study the effect of the heating rate of SPS on the microstructure and the thermal conductivity of Si3N4 ceramics after the heat-treatment. Results show that the heating rate of SPS has great influence on the phase transformation and the microstructure of the β-Si3N4, but it has little influence on the thermal conductivity of the ceramics. This proves that the thermal conductivity of the ceramics does not have an obvious relationship with the ratio and the size of the columnar β-Si3N4 grain.