Nanocrystalline oxides synthesized by mechanical alloying

Mechanical alloying is a synthesis technique which is used to produce nanostructured powders. Nevertheless this high energy ball-milling process is not used only for refining of microstructure, but also for inducing chemical reactions between two powders or between powders and the atmosphere of grinding or for inducing chemical or phase transformations... Polymorphic transformations induced by ball-milling in SnO2, TiO2, Y2O3 and WO3 and the influence of the nature of milling media on these transformations are described as well as the formation mechanisms of nanocrystalline based zirconia alloys. The nanometric structure of so obtained powders is characterized by transmission electron microscopy and a hyperfine technique: the Mossbauer spectroscopy.