2017 Volume 64 Issue 10 Pages 547-551
Highly transparent hydroxyapatite ceramics were fabricated by using the electrically conductive SiC mold during spark plasma sintering. Compared to the conventional graphite mold, the SiC mold lowered the sintering temperature by 50°C at least. The in-line transmission of the sintered ceramics is 82% at a wavelength of 600 nm. The high transmission is a result of fine and dense microstructures. The light scattering behavior was examined to show the Rayleigh and Mie scattering at low and high wavelengths, respectively. The appearance of the Rayleigh scattering, which is caused by nano-sized pores, indicates that the Mie scattering by anisotropic grains was sufficiently suppressed by the fine microstructures.
