Formation and photoluminescence of zirconia dendrites in borosilicate glass-ceramics

We prepared a borosilicate glass, in which the ZrO₂ phase is singly crystallizable, i.e., 15Na₂O15ZrO₂30B₂O₃40SiO₂ glass, and investigated the texture and morphology of the resulting glass-ceramics. ZrO₂ dendrites with a tetragonal system (hightemperature phase) were developed as initial phase, and the tetragonal phase was transformed to the monoclinic phase (lowtemperature phase) by elongation of the heat-treatment time, and finally the needle-/rod-like crystals on a scale of few hundred nanometers were obtained. The glass-ceramics with monoclinic ZrO₂ showed photoluminescence around 480nm by excitation in the ultraviolet region. The effect of TiO₂-addition on the photoluminescent property was also considered.