Identification of tetragonal and cubic structures of zirconia. Technical report, June 1989-May 1990

X-ray diffraction from a synchrotron source was employed in an attempt to identify definitively the crystal structures in zirconia ceramics produced by sol-gel method. The particles of chemically precipitated zirconia, after calcination below 600 C, are very fine, and have a diffracting particle size in the range of 7-15 nm. Since the tetragonal and cubic structures of zirconia have very similar lattice parameters, it is difficult to distinguish between the two. The tetragonal structure can be identified only by the characteristic splittings of the Bragg profiles from the c index planes. However, these split Bragg peaks from the tetragonal phase in zirconia overlap with one another due to particle size broadening. In order to distinguish between the tetragonal and cubic structures of zirconia, three samples were studied using synchrotron radiation.