Synergistic effects of ZrO2 and La2O3 on the phase stability and optical–electronic properties of Y2O3

Abstract Yttrium oxide has the potential to be used as a host material for creating polycrystalline transparent ceramics (PTCs). This paper presents an experimental study on opto‐electrical properties of using zirconium oxide and lanthanum oxide as sintering aids via the co‐precipitation technique. The sintering aids improve the properties, sintering process, and lower the sintering temperature. Five different compositions of were synthesized and they were then used to analyze for their structural, morphological, physio‐chemical, and electrical characteristics. For the system studied, the addition of and does not change the phase of pure , but an increase in the crystal and grain size from to and 10.2 µm to 16.4 µm was noticed. The thermal characterization over thermogravimetric analysis/differential thermal calorimetry (TGA/DSC) determines the temperature at which pure undergoes a phase transition, specifically over 700°C. A reduction in the band gap due to strain induced by the dopant resulted in a decrease in energy from to . The dielectric constant of doped with exhibits a significant increase of .