Fabrication of transparent SiO2 glass from pressureless sintering of floc-cast green body in air

Abstract

We prepared dense (67.9 vol%) green bodies from high-purity spherical fused SiO2 powder by using the floc-casting technique. A firing schedule was determined from data obtained by the in-situ measurement of the sintering shrinkage of the compacts. Accordingly, we fired the compacts at 1400°C for 30 min in air to obtain transparent SiO2 glass sintered bodies. The XRD patterns of the sintered bodies were the same as those before sintering. No crystallization was observed in the sintered bodies. Moreover, the sintered bodies with a thickness of 2 mm had a high transmlsslvity (>85%) In the visible range.