Processing
Silicon nitride is difficult to produce as a bulk material—it cannot be heated over 1850 °C, which is well below its melting point, due to dissociation to silicon and nitrogen. Therefore, application of conventional hot press sintering techniques is problematic. Bonding of silicon nitride powders can be achieved at lower temperatures through adding additional materials (sintering aids or "binders") which commonly induce a degree of liquid phase sintering. A cleaner alternative is to use spark plasma sintering where heating is conducted very rapidly (seconds) by passing pulses of electric current through the compacted powder. Dense silicon nitride compacts have been obtained by this techniques at temperatures 1500–1700 °C.
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