Ultra-fast sintering and grain boundary metastability in ceramics

• Rapid sintering can trigger grain boundary metastability. • Grain boundary metastability can interact with densification kinetics and microstructural evolution. • Scaling laws can exist correlating metastability with the particle size. • Grain boundary metastability can explain different phenomena observed during sintering. Grain boundaries (GB) are critical in polycrystalline ceramics. They control the material’s properties as well as the diffusional processes. While they received little atte