Microstructure and wearability of nano-ZrO2 ferrule for optical fiber connector

ZrO₂ ferrule, the core component of the optical fiber connector, plays an important role in the properties of ZrO₂ ferrule. In this paper, the nano-sized ZrO₂ ceramic powder was prepared by chemical precipitation process. According to this method, ZrOCl₂·8HO, water and PEG-6000 was separately selected as the raw material, solvent and additive. Best processing conditions was determined: consistence of ZrO₂ was 0.5mol/L, reaction temperature was 80° and sintering temperature was 600°. The ceramic sintering body was prepared at different pressure and temperature with using the nano-sized ceramic powder which were prepared under the best processing conditions. The structure of the nano-sized ZrO₂ ceramic powder was characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD) and it proved that nano-sized ZrO₂ ceramic powder sintered at 600° was mainly the tetragonal phase; Porosity was characterized by Scanning electron microscope(SEM) and it proved that the porosity of sintering body decreased with the increasing temperature. The wearability was tested on MPX-2000 friction pin-disk testing machine and it proved that within a certain temperature range, wearability increased with the increasing molding pressure. Finally, the best sintering temperature was determined as 1450° and the best molding pressure was determined as 600MPa.