@article{Tian2026, 
author = {Jiang Tian and Lin Chen and Xunlei Chen and Jiankun Wang and Zipeng Gao and Hao Xu and Jing Feng},
title = {High-temperature heat treatment tailored crystals and microstructures of multicomponent rare-earth tantalates RETaO4 nano powders},
year = {2026},
journal = {Journal of Advanced Ceramics},
volume = {15},
number = {4},
pages = {9221271},
keywords = {thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), heat treatment, nanopowders, rare-earth tantalates, structural regulations},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/JAC.2026.9221271},
doi = {10.26599/JAC.2026.9221271},
abstract = {Tailoring crystals and microstructures of multicomponent rare-earth tantalate RETaO4 nano powders can promote their application as thermal protective coating materials because their properties are dominated by the structures. In this work, multicomponent RETaO4 nano powders are synthesized via the chemical coprecipitation method, and their structures are tailored by changing the annealing temperature. After annealed at 800–1500 °C, the multicomponent RETaO4 nano powders can be crystallized into metastable tetragonal (t′), monoclinic-prime (m′), and monoclinic (m) phases, and their particle sizes (8–652 nm) gradually increase with increasing temperature. The optimal annealing temperature of RETaO4 powders is determined to be 1000 °C based on the crystallinity degree and particle sizes, which are 11.3 nm and 89.5%, respectively. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and corresponding energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) mapping have validated the compositional uniformity of each element at the nanoscale, and the interplanar spacing of different phases corresponds to the X-ray diffraction (XRD) Rietveld refinements. This work demonstrates that high-temperature heat treatment can act as an effective mean to tailor the particle sizes and crystal structures of RETaO4 ceramic, which can be further applied to synthesize nano spherical powders and coatings in future studies.}
}