Dielectric properties of spark plasma sintered AlN/SiC composite ceramics

In this study, we have investigated how the dielectric loss tangent and permittivity of AlN ceramics are affected by factors such as powder mixing methods, milling time, sintering temperature, and the addition of a second conductive phase. All ceramic samples were prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS) under a pressure of 30 MPa. AlN composite ceramics sintered with 30wt%–40wt% SiC at 1600°C for 5 min exhibited the best dielectric loss tangent, which is greater than 0.3. In addition to AlN and β-SiC, the samples also contained 2H-SiC and Fe₅Si₃, as detected by X-ray difraction (XRD). The relative densities of the sintered ceramics were higher than 93%. Experimental results indicate that nano-SiC has a strong capability of absorbing electromagnetic waves. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of AlN-SiC ceramics with the same content of SiC decreased as the frequency of electromagnetic waves increased from 1 kHz to 1 MHz.