Sintering kinetics, defect chemistry and room-temperature mechanical properties of titanium nitride prepared by spark plasma sintering

Abstract Fully dense titanium nitride polycrystals have been prepared by spark plasma sintering. The kinetics of the sintering process and the optimized conditions for SPS processing have been put forward. Microstructural analyses of the resulting samples have unambiguously shown the coexistence of titanium as Ti2+, Ti3+ and Ti4+, thus driving the presence of cation vacancies. This fact is a new ingredient which is shown to influence the mechanical properties of this strategic ceramic.