Tough and strong Ce-TZP/Alumina nanocomposites doped with titania

Abstract To develop a new attractive Ce-TZP ceramic, which possesses a high strength while still preserving significant high toughness, we investigated an intragranular type of nanocomposite in lower CeO2 content for 0–1 mol% TiO2 doped Ce-TZP/Al2O3 system. These composites partly possessed an intragranular microstructure, in which several of 10–100 nm sized Al2O3 particles were trapped within the ZrO2 grains. Furthermore, elongated Al2O3-like phases were produced at the ZrO2 grain boundaries, which were in-situ precipitated during the sintering process. TiO2 was confirmed to dissolve into the tetragonal ZrO2 lattice, which was determined to be effective for strengthening with a slight addition due to its grain growth enhancing ability on ZrO2. For an optimum component with 0.05 mol% TiO2 doped 10Ce-TZP/30 vol% Al2O3 composite, both high strength (950 MPa) and high toughness (18.3 MPa.m1/2 for the IF method, 9.8 MPa.m1/2 for the SEVNB method) were achieved thus breaking through the strength–toughness tradeoff relation in transformation toughened ZrO2 and its composite materials.