Synthesis of oxygen-free aluminium nitride ceramics

The aluminium nitride raw material in the form of powder was synthesized us ing the Self propagating High temperature Synthesis (SHS) method which prov ides no oxygen im purities. Then AIN powder was sintered to the fu II densi ty without sintering additives a nd under a high pressure in a belt apparat us. For the AIN ceramics obtained the temperature dependences of the therma l diffusivity were measured with the laser-flash method. Finally we produce d oxygen-free aluminium nitride ceramics with parameters comparable with th eoretical data. (C) 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers.