Tetragonal zirconia spheres fabricated by carbon-assisted selective laser heating in a liquid medium.

Submicrometer-sized tetragonal zirconia spheres are synthesized by carbon-assisted selective pulsed laser heating in a liquid medium at room temperature. Sphere formation and phase transformation from the monoclinic to the tetragonal phase are only observed by laser irradiation of a colloidal solution containing raw zirconia mechanically milled with nanocarbon. This result indicates that nanocarbon, having close contact with zirconia particles, plays a very important role in forming submicrometer-sized tetragonal zirconia spheres.