Zirconia nanoparticles: a martensitic phase transition at low temperature

Abstract

The low temperature (450-600 C) amorphous to tetragonal and tetragonal to monoclinic phase transformations in zirconia nanoparticles, produced by an aqueous sol-gel route, are analysed in terms of their changes of lattice parameters and by using the phenomenological theory of martensitic transformation (Bowles-Mackenzie theory) to explore whether or not those crystallographic changes may be considered a martensitic transformation within the zirconia nanoparticles.

Effect of microscale shear stresses on the martensitic phase transformation of nanocrystalline tetragonal zirconia powders

“…Effect of particle size, water, and oxygen vacancies on phase transformation of YSZ has been reported. 18,19 Effect of uniaxial stress on tetragonal to monoclinic (t-m) phase transformation has been reported. 20 There are only a few reports on the effect of external mechanical stress on the phase transformation behaviour of undoped ZrO 2 .…”