Quantitative analysis of liquid-phase-sintered SiC by using the Rietveld method

Accurate X-ray quantitative analysis in SiC-based ceramics is a difficult t ask owing to the strong overlap among the Bragg reflections of the differen t polytypes. In relation to this point, the Rietveld method can be used as a powerful tool in order to solve this problem. In this study we have appli ed this procedure to determine the weight fractions of the phases in a liqu id-phase-sintered SiC sample. It is shown that the consideration of preferr ed orientation effects is also indispensable to obtain the accurate proport ion of the phases.