Conductive and radiative heat transfer inhibition in YSZ photonic glass

A high temperature stable ceramic photonic structure is demonstrated with low thermal conductivity and suppressed external radiative heat transfer. The structure is based on a disordered arrangement of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) microparticles, called photonic glass (PhG). The prepared YSZ-PhG film exhibits low thermal conductivity of 0.03 Wm−1K−1 comparable to that of the air. The small point contacts of the adjacent YSZ particles are the main cause of such low thermal conductivity. After annealing at 1400 °C for 5 h, the solid thermal conductivity increased to 0.3 Wm−1K−1 at room temperature due to the thermally induced neck formation, associated with an increased contact area between adjacent particles. This thermal conductivity is still much lower than that of conventional YSZ thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) with approximately 1 Wm−1K−1. At the same time, the PhG structure is an efficient scatterer for thermal radiation in the wavelength range between 1 and 6 μm. In an only 100 μm thick structure an average reflection of 84% was obtained. At 1400 °C, the effective thermal conductivity is 0.2 Wm−1K−1. The presented structure is applicable to other oxides with even lower bulk thermal conductivity and can be considered for future TBCs.