Rapid fabrication of extremely thin Nano-Al2O3 transparent ceramic wafers through nonaqueous tape casting

Al2O3 transparent ceramics have important applications in electronics, solid-state lighting, military and 5G industries. At present, thin and large-size Al2O3 ceramics are urgently required by enterprises. Tape casting method has emerged as a powerful tool in producing transparent ceramics, but the preparation of the slurries is generally very time consuming. In this study, a one-step ball milling process was proposed to fabricate Al2O3 transparent ceramics through non-aqueous tape casting, in which green tapes were obtained with uniform texture and no distortion. Thickness of the Al2O3 transparent ceramics approached 0.1 mm. The effects of dry pressing on single and double-layer tapes were also compared. It was found that dry pressing has essentially no effect on monolayer samples, but contributed to improve the densification and promoted grain growth of the bilayer samples. Our results could be used as reference for the preparation of extremely thin Al2O3 transparent ceramic wafers.