The full densification polycrystalline cerium hexaboride （CeB6） cathode material was prepared by using the spark plasma sintering （SPS） method in an oxygen free system. The starting precursor nanopowders with an average grain size of 50 nm were prepared by high-energy ball milling. The ball-milled nanopowder was fully densified at 1550 °C under 50 MPa, which was about 350 °C lower than the conventional hot-pressing method and it was also lower than that of coarse powder under the same sintering condition. The mechanical properties of nanopowder sintered samples were significantly better than that of coarse powder, e.g., the flexural strength and Vickers hardness were 211% and 51% higher than that of coarse powder, respectively. The electron backscattered diffraction （EBSD） result showed that the （100） fiber texture could be fabricated by the ball-milled nanopowder sintered at 1550 °C and the thermionic emission current density was measured to be 16.04 A/cm2 at a cathode temperature of 1873 K.
Polycrystalline rare-earth hexaborides （NdxGdl-x）B6 （x = 0, 0.2, 0.6, 0.8, 1） were prepared by the reactive spark plasma sintering （SPS） method using mixed powder of GdH2, NdH2 and B. The effects of Nd doping on the crystal structure, the grain orientation, the thermionie emission and the magnetic properties of the hexaboride were investigated by X-ray diffraction, electron backscattered diffraction and magnetic measurements. It is found that all the samples sintered by the SPS method exhibit high densities （〉95%） and high values of Vickers hardness （2319 kg/mm2）. The values are much higher than those obtained in the traditional method. With the increase of Nd content,the thermionic emission current density increases from 11 to 16.30 A/cm2 and the magnetic phase transition temperature increases from 5.85 to 7.95 K. Thus, the SPS technique is a suitable method to synthesize the dense rare-earth hexaborides with excellent properties.
