Additive Manufacturing of Ductile, Ultrastrong Polymer-Derived Nanoceramics

Bauer, Jens; Crook, Cameron; Guell Izard, Anna; Eckel, Zak C.; Ruvalcaba, Nicolas; Schaedler, Tobias A.; Valdevit, Lorenzo

Matter 1 (2019)

Ductile high-strength ceramics would be ideal for many structural applications; however, they have been neither demonstrated at dimensions much above the nanoscale nor shown to be manufacturable with application-relevant processes. Here, we present a robust route to additively manufacture ductile, ultrastrong silicon oxycarbide nanoceramics via two-photon polymerization of a preceramic resin and subsequent pyrolysis. We measure plastic deformability with strains up to 25% and strengths >7 GPa for 20-μm specimens, opening up potential for fabrication of mesoscale ductile ceramic components.

http://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2019.09.009