Blocking of grain reorientation in self-doped alumina materials.M. Suárez, A. Fernández, J.L. Menéndez, J. Ramírez-Rico, R. Torrecillas.2011

Scripta Materialia, Volume 64,  Issue 6, Pages 517-520, 2011http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135964621000789X

Alumina nanoparticles 10–20 nm in diameter were nucleated on alumina particles, 150 nm average diameter, by a colloidal route followed by calcination. It is shown that after sintering, the final grain size is up to 20% smaller due to the addition of the alumina nanoparticles. Electron backscattered diffraction analysis shows that whereas a correlation in the relative crystalline orientations between neighbouring grains exists in the pure materials, the addition of alumina nanoparticles results in a random crystalline orientation.