Hybrid Processing of Electroceramic Composites Involving High-Energy Ball Milling

Composites are of great interest in materials engineering either to tailor-make their desired properties or to develop new characteristics that are absent in single-phase materials. Microstructure-manipulated ceramics allow scientists to achieve physical properties with dramatic modifications, and even behaviors, which are not present in their individual single-phase ceramics. New processing technologies are expected to result in advanced electroceramic composites. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce a new hybrid process that combines the sol-gel process with mechanically activated nano-sized powders by using a high-energy ball-milling technique. We focus on the preparation and characterization of nano-sized powders treated or triggered by high-energy ball milling with various processing parameters. With the new hybrid process, electroceramic composites of highly enhanced sinterability have been achieved at low firing temperatures. We discuss the fabrication process and characteristics of ceramic-ceramic 0-3 (Ba, Sr)TiO3 nanocomposite thick films and ceramic composites (Ba, Sr)TiO3-MgO composites, and fine-grained (Ni, Zn)Fe2O4-Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 ceramic composites, believe that this simple, flexible and reproducible approach should be applicable to many other ceramic composites at relatively low firing temperatures.