“…It can be observed that, in addition to the carbothermal reduction effect of carbon, a slight incorporation of hydrogen in the atmosphere also had a minor effect on the loss of oxygen. The loss of oxygen with the addition of carbon in the green compact or introduction of a fraction of hydrogen in the nitrogen sintering atmosphere accounted for the improvement in the thermal conductivity of sintered AlN (Lai and Nagai, 1995;Koval'chenko et al, 2000;Watari, 2001). Fig.…”