Estimation of lattice strain for zirconia nano-particles based on Williamson- Hall analysis

Nanoparticles of Zirconia were prepared (ZrO2) by the neutralization of zirconium oxychloride octahydrate (ZrOCl2-8H2O) (2M) and ammonia solution (2M) at pH 8. The ZrO2 crystalline state was revealed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The analysis of Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron microscope (TEM) images reveals that the as-synthesized ZrO2 particles at firing temperature of 800 °C are uniform and of range of 30 nm. Increasing of the temperature up to 1100 °C leads to the increase in particle size and alters the powders shape due to agglomeration arose from zirconia calcination as well as the increase in particle size. The X-ray peak broadening analysis (XRDBA) was used in the estimation of the crystalline size. Williamson-Hall (W-H) analysis was applied successfully to determine the energy density, stress, and the strain values via uniform deformation model (UDM), uniform deformation stress model (UDSM) and uniform deformation energy density model (UDEDM). The mean of the strain root square was calculated. The different strain values obtained from these models predicting the zirconia isotropic behavior. In addition to that, the W-H analysis results were discussed in terms of that obtained by Scherrer's relationship, SEM and TEM images.