Controllable reduction of absorbance and two-step reaction for 3D-printed SiC ceramics with micron-level periodic structure

Digital light processing (DLP) is increasingly widely used to manufacture high-precision complex structural ceramic components quickly and efficiently. However, due to the high absorbance of silicon carbide (SiC) micron fine powder and the high refractive index difference between the powder and the photosensitive resin, it is extremely challenging to DLP print SiC with high precision complex structure. Here, the surface of SiC powder was coated with SiO₂ nano-layer of different thickness by controllable oxidation coating method, thus realizing the photocurable printing of SiC@SiO₂ green bodies with structural precision up to 80 μm. Through the two-step reaction method of carbothermal reduction combined with gas-phase siliconizing (GSI), not only the SiO₂ coated layer was effectively removed, but also the reaction-bonded silicon carbide (RB-SiC) ceramics with 80–300 μm periodic structure was successfully realized. Ultimately, the comprehensive performance of the RB-SiC samples is effectively improved by chemical vapor infiltration of silicon carbide (CVI-SiC). It is noteworthy that the maximum elastic modulus and hardness of the ultima SiC specimens (RB-SiC@CVI-SiC) are as high as 394.599 GPa and 50.241 GPa, respectively. Shockingly, the nanomechanical properties of postgenetic RB-SiC bound to initial α-SiC on the cross-section of ultima specimens were much higher than those of CVI-SiC on the surface. This study fills the gap that liquid-phase siliconizing (LSI) or pyrolysis process could not achieve high-performance SiC ceramics with micron-level periodic structure.