It is well known that sol-gel technique is a simple method to produce nano sized ceramic powders. In this study, cerium oxide doped zirconia samples, with 10 mol%-12mol% and14mol% CeO2, were synthesized by sol-gel technique and characterized. The surface morphology, elemental composition, microstructure, and phase analysis, of the sintered CeO2 doped ZrO2 ceramics were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDS) analysis, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) respectively. X-ray diffraction for samples sintered at 1550 °C for 4h revealed that the zirconia ceramics have a tetragonal phase structure. The addition of CeO2 can raise the content of the tetragonal phase, but the minor monoclinic phase exists even at the CeO2 content of 10 mol%. The effect of dopant concentration on the lattice parameter, average primary crystallite size and micro-strain was studied. Relative densities for CeO2 doped ZrO2 bulk ceramics varied between 95% and 99 %, depending on the CeO2 addition.
X-ray Micro-Tomography as a Method to Distinguish and Characterize Natural and Cultivated Pearls