It was recalled that the sintering of ceramics involved mass transport across grain boundaries, resulting in the migration of those boundaries. When there was a liquid at the interface, as in liquid-phase sintering, mass transport could be enhanced. Electron back-scattering diffraction was used here in order to examine the grain-boundary migration of controlled interfaces in alumina. The interfaces were prepared by hot-pressing single-crystal and polycrystalline alumina to single-crystal alumina substrates of known orientation. EBSD patterns, taken from near to the sintered interfaces, were used to study the effects of crystallography upon the migration-direction, and rate.

The Effects of Crystallography on Grain-Boundary Migration in Alumina. J.K.Farrer, C.B.Carter, N.Ravishankar: Journal of Materials Science, 2006, 41[3], 661-74