Particle transport mode during flash sintering of sodium bismuth titanate ceramic

In this work, the NBT ceramics are successfully flash sintered at a direct current 30 mA/mm2 for 30 s under different initial electric field. Subsequently, the actual temperature of samples is estimated by blackbody radiation theory under different conditions. The calculation results show that the sample temperature is close to the densification temperature of NBT ceramics used in conventional method. The rapid densification mechanism is discussed by wetting of local contact particles due to the asymmetrical Joule heating. In particular, we analyzed the particle transport mode during flash sintering in terms of particle diffusion. It is believed that the transform in the particles transport mode from solid diffusion to flow mass transfer accelerated the particles diffusion rate, which ensure the particle rearrangement and achieve the local shrinkage of particles in a short period of time.