Disclosed herein is a ceramic matrix composite comprising a preform comprising a plurality of plies; a ceramic matrix encompassing the plies and distributed through the plies; and thermally conducting particles distributed through the ceramic matrix. Disclosed herein is a method comprising distributing thermally conducting particles between plies in a preform; infiltrating chemical vapors of a ceramic precursor into the plies; and reacting the ceramic precursor to form a matrix.

A filter for the filtration of a fluid, such as a liquid, includes or is composed of a support element made of a porous ceramic material, the element exhibiting a tubular or parallelepipedal shape delimited by an external surface and including, in its internal portion, a set of adjacent channels with axes parallel to one another and separated from one another by walls of the porous inorganic material, in which at least a portion of the channels and/or at least a portion of the external surface are covered with a porous separating membrane layer, wherein the separating membrane layer is made of a material essentially composed of silicon carbide (SiC), and the content by weight of elemental nitrogen of the layer constituting the porous separating membrane layer is between 0.1% and 2%.

A sintered body includes a first hard particle, a second hard particle, and a binder. The first hard particle is an M sialon particle having a coating layer. The M sialon particle is represented by M.sub.xSi.sub.(6−x−z)Al.sub.zO.sub.zN.sub.(8−z) (in the formula, M is a metal containing at least one selected from the group consisting of calcium, strontium, barium, scandium, yttrium, lanthanoid, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, and group IV, group V, and group VI elements of the periodic table, and relationships of 0.01≦x≦2, 0.01≦z≦4.2, and 1.79≦(6−x−z)≦5.98 are satisfied). The second hard particle is a cubic boron nitride particle.

A method is disclosed for forming a blended phosphor composition. The method includes the steps of firing precursor compositions that include europium and nitrides of at least calcium, strontium and aluminum, in a refractory metal crucible and in the presence of a gas that precludes the formation of nitride compositions between the nitride starting materials and the refractory metal that forms the crucible. The resulting compositions can include phosphors that convert frequencies in the blue portion of the visible spectrum into frequencies in the red portion of the visible spectrum.

A method can be used for producing a powdery precursor material for an optoelectronic component having a first phase of the following general composition (Ca.sub.1-a-b-c-d-eZn.sub.dMg.sub.eSr.sub.cBa.sub.bX.sub.a).sub.2Si.sub.5N.sub.8, wherein X is an activator that is selected from the group of the lanthanoids and wherein the following applies: 0<a<1 and 0≦b≦1 and 0≦c≦ and 0≦d≦1 and 0≦e≦1. The method includes producing a powdery mixture of starting materials. The starting materials comprise ions of the aforementioned composition. At least silicon nitride having a specific surface area greater than or equal to 9 m/g is selected as a starting material and wherein the silicon nitride comprises alpha silicon nitride or is amorphous. The method also includes heat-treating the mixture under a protective gas atmosphere.

A ceramic material includes of β-sialon (Si.sub.(6-z)Al.sub.zO.sub.zN.sub.(8-z)), polytype 15R, an intergranular phase, and yttrium. The polytype 15R includes twin grains.

A method includes performing ion beam sputtering with ion assisted deposition to deposit a protective layer on a surface of a body. The protective layer is a plasma resistant rare earth-containing film of a thickness less than 1000 .Math.m. The porosity of the protective layer is below 1%. The plasma resistant rare earth-containing film consists of 40 mol% to less than 100 mol% of Y.sub.2O.sub.3, over 0 mol% to 60 mol% of ZrO.sub.2, and 0 mol% to 9 mol% of Al.sub.2O.sub.3.

The disclosure describes techniques for infiltrating a porous preform with a slurry to form an infiltrated-preform, where the slurry includes a plurality of solid particles, where the plurality of solid particles include a plurality of fine ceramic particles defining an average fine particle diameter, a plurality of coarse ceramic particles defining an average coarse particle diameter, and a plurality of diamond particles, where the average fine particle diameter is less than the average coarse particle diameter, and infiltrating the infiltrated-preform with a molten metal infiltrant to form a ceramic matrix composite (CMC) article.

A method of making a ceramic matrix composite that exhibits moisture and environmental resistance has been developed. The method includes depositing a diffusion barrier layer comprising boron nitride on silicon carbide fibers and depositing a moisture-tolerant layer comprising silicon-doped boron nitride on the diffusion barrier layer, where a thickness of the moisture-tolerant layer is from about 3 to about 300 times a thickness of the diffusion barrier layer. Thus, a compliant multilayer including the moisture-tolerant layer and the diffusion barrier layer is formed. A wetting layer comprising silicon carbide, boron carbide, and/or pyrolytic carbon is deposited on the compliant multilayer layer. After depositing the wetting layer, a fiber preform comprising the silicon carbide fibers is infiltrated with a slurry. After slurry infiltration, the fiber preform is infiltrated with a melt comprising silicon and then the melt is cooled, thereby forming a ceramic matrix composite.

The present invention provides a welding tool member for friction stir welding comprising a silicon nitride sintered body, wherein the silicon nitride sintered body includes an additive component other than silicon nitride in a content of 15% by mass or less, and the additive component includes three or more elements selected from Y, Al, Mg, Si, Ti, Hf, Mo and C. It is preferable that the content of the additive component is 3% by mass or more and 12.5% by mass or less. It is also preferable that the additive component includes four or more elements selected from Y, Al, Mg, Si, Ti, Hf, Mo and C. Due to above structure, there can be provided a welding tool member for friction stir welding having a high durability.