Comparing infrared transmission of zinc sulfide nanostructure ceramic produced via hot pressure and spark plasma sintering methods.

This research has investigated the optical properties of zinc sulfide commercial powder sintered via hot pressure (HP) and spark plasma sintering (SPS) methods. SEM images indicated that zinc sulfide commercial powder had spherical morphology, whereby nano rods smaller than 100 nm formed on spherical particles. Investigation of optical properties indicated that the zinc sulfide transparent ceramic prepared via HP (75%) had higher infrared transmission as compared to SPS (69%) within 8–12 micrometer. The stoichiometric ratio of S to Zn in the commercial powder was 1.5, which decreased to 1.1–1.3 after the sintering process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]