1000 at 1000: The effect of electric field and pressure on the synthesis and consolidation of materials: a review of the
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1000 at 1000: The effect of electric field and pressure on the synthesis and consolidation of materials: a review of the spark plasma sintering method Zuhair A. Munir1,* 1
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
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Springer Science+Business
Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Introduction This Editorial is part of the celebration of a milestone for the Journal: the publication of its 1000th issue. The celebration also highlights published papers that received 1000 or more citations, hence ‘‘1000 at 1000.’’ Our review article on the SPS process was such a paper [1]. While it is generally the case that review articles such as ours receive higher citations than regular papers, the nature of the field and its rate of development also play important roles. The high citations of our article are, I believe, reflections of the high interest and widespread research activity in this field worldwide. On a personal note, my involvement in SPS research was an outcome of work I did back in the 1970s on electric field effects on various materials processes. I started by looking at the effect of an electric field on
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-05040-4
the sublimation of ionic single crystals, because such crystals have a surface charge. We looked not only at effects on sublimation rates, but also on changes in evaporation surface ledge dynamics and morphology. At the time the research seems rather esoteric, ‘‘what practical benefit does the evaporation of sodium chloride have?’’, a well-meaning colleague once asked. Fortunately, the funding agency, NSF, saw our research in a different light and provided a major encouragement by awarding me the Creativity in Research Award, twice. The work continued, examining field effects on growth and orientation of crystals and on the formation, mobility, and distribution of crystalline defects. In the 1980s a new area of research, self-propagating high-temperature synthesis, SHS, became the focus of widespread investigations in the USA and elsewhere. It started earlier in the former Soviet Union as an outcome of research on rocket fuels.
J Mater Sci
DARPA and the Department of Energy funded our work, which quickly involved the use of electric fields to activate such reactions. With the application of a field it was possible to achieve goals not possible with the ordinary SHS process. Subsequently the use of electric field in SHS became well known and widespread. Recollections from those days include an invitation to visit the Institute of Structural Macrokinetics in the then Soviet Union with a stay at the USSR Academy of Sciences Hotel in Moscow, not far from Red Square, and a trip to Alma Ata the capital of the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan to give a presentation at a conference. Another unforgettable recollection for me from the heydays of the SHS research is an international conference held in China, at which I presented findings on field-activated SHS. The co
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