“…Whether the result of imperfect powder preparation (e.g. slight weighing errors due to water absorption on high surface-area powders, inhomogeneous co-precipitation of precursors with distinct solubility constants, contamination by grinding media during blending), thermal decomposition during hightemperature sintering [23,24] or because of unbalanced condensation rates, as in the synthesis of chemically-vapor deposited (CVD'ed) ceramics [25], composition-control poses severe challenges to the consistent fabrication of ceramics with high optical quality. It has been shown, for example, that the solid-solution range for the Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (YAG, Y 3 Al 5 O 12 ) [26,27], a material widely used as laser gain medium [12,28], phosphor [29] and scintillator [20], lies within (5/3-0.03) <Al/Y< (5/3 + 0.008) [20,30].…”