the effect of sm2o3 on the sintering and grain growth behaviors of sno2-based ceramics

The effect of samarium oxide was examined on the sintering, microstructure, and grain growth behaviors of (co, nb)-doped sno2-based ceramics prepared by co-precipitation method. the sintered samples were studied through x-ray diffraction (xrd), scanning electron microscopy (sem), and electron dispersive spectroscopy (eds) analyses. the microstructure observations revealed that the samples were near fully dense at a sintering temperature of 1200°c for 1h. the samarium doping prevented accelerated grain growth of the sno2-based ceramic in the final stage of the sintering. the mean grain size of the sno2-based ceramic without sm2o3 doping was 2.70μm, which was reduced to 0.887μm for the sample doped with 0.05mol% sm2o3. the grain size reduction of samples doped with sm2o3 could be attributed to the segregation of sm2o3 at the grain boundaries.