MA Ben ¹, LI Jian ²
(1. College of Sciences, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430080, Hubei, China; 2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China)

Abstract: LaNbO₄-NiO-Y₂O₃ stabilized ZrO₂ (YSZ) composite was prepared by solid state reaction at 1500 ℃ and the chemical compatibility of the three phases in the composite was investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS).The composition distributions measured by EDS indicated the formation of an interdiffusion zone at different phase boundaries, which,however, was the low resolution effect of EDS. The phase boundaries were further analysed by high resolution TEM, which revealed that the LaNbO₄, NiO and YSZ phases were separated by well-defined boundaries with no lattice distortions or presence of new phases, confirming that LaNbO₄, NiO and YSZ are chemically compatible at temperatures up to 1500 ℃.

Key words: chemical compatibility; grain boundaries; transmission electron microscope; focused ion beam; microstructure