Ultra-Fast Laser Fabrication of Alumina Micro-Sample Array and High-Throughput Characterization of Microstructure and Hardness

In the light of recent advances in material informatics, there is a great demand for high-throughput approaches of sample fabrication and property characterization. Currently, no high-throughput approach has been demonstrated for the fast sampling of the microstructure and the correlated properties....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xiao Geng, Jianan Tang, Bridget Sheridan, Siddhartha Sarkar, Jianhua Tong, Hai Xiao, Dongsheng Li, Rajendra K. Bordia, Fei Peng
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-07-01
Series:Crystals
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/11/8/890
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Summary:In the light of recent advances in material informatics, there is a great demand for high-throughput approaches of sample fabrication and property characterization. Currently, no high-throughput approach has been demonstrated for the fast sampling of the microstructure and the correlated properties. In this paper, we demonstrate the ultra-fast fabrication of an alumina sample array and the high-throughput hardness characterization of these sample units. The alumina sample array was fabricated using picosecond (PS) laser micromachining and CO<sub>2</sub> laser sintering within a short time (i.e., less than a few minutes). After laser sintering, the hardness of these sample units was characterized using micro-indentation, and the microstructure was observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In each sample unit, the microstructure was uniform for the entire top surface and within about 20 µm depth from the top surface. The relative density (RD) and corresponding micro-hardness of the sample units was found to continuously vary over a wide range from 89% RD with 600 kgf/mm<sup>2</sup> hardness to 99% RD with 1609 kgf/mm<sup>2</sup> hardness. For these laser-sintered samples, the correlation of hardness and relative density of the alumina matched well with the literature reports on sintered alumina obtained using conventional low-throughput furnace sintering experiments.
ISSN:2073-4352