Laminar‐Structured YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG Transparent Ceramics for Solid‐State Lasers

Abstract

A laminar‐structured YAG/1.0 at.% Nd:YAG/YAG transparent ceramic was fabricated by a solid‐state reaction method and vacuum sintering using high‐purity α‐Al2O3, Y2O3, and Nd2O3 as raw materials with tetraethoxysilane as a sintering aid. The microstructure, the optical property, and the laser performance of the ceramic composite prepared were investigated in this paper. It is found that the sample exhibits a pore‐free structure and the average grain size is about 15 μm. There is no secondary phase both at the grain boundary and at the grain matrix. The optical transmittance of the sample (5.0 mm thick) is 80.2% at 1064 nm. The lasing sample is Φ16.2 mm × 5.0 mm in size, mirror polished on both sides and without a coating. A laser diode (808 nm) was used as a pump source with a maximum output of about 1000 mW, and the end‐pumped laser experiment was demonstrated. With 658 mW of maximum absorbed pump power, a laser output of 8 mW has been obtained with a slope efficiency of 4.0%.

Sintering and laser behavior of composite YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG transparent ceramics

“…For example, the thermal conductivity (∼10 W/m K) of 1.0 at.% Nd:YAG is about 1.4 times lower than that of pure YAG [7]. In order to address this problem, the composite structure of YAG ceramic and single crystal was fabricated by vacuum sintering techniques and thermal diffusion bonding, respectively [8,9]. The thermal concentration of local regions can be suppressed using composite structure design thanks to gradient distribution of active elements [3,10].…”

Synthesis of nanocrystalline yttria powder and fabrication of Cr,Nd:YAG transparent ceramics

“…Highly transparent Nd:YAG polycrystalline ceramics have gained more and more attention as novel solid-state laser materials due to their several remarkable advantages, such as high doping concentration, easy fabrication of large scale, low cost, multilayer and multifunctional ceramics lasing components, and mass production, compared with Nd:YAG single crystals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Laser-diode pumped passively Q-switched microchip solid-state lasers with high peak power have been shown to be useful sources for many applications, which has been demonstrated in Cr 4+ ,Nd 3+ :YAG single crystals [9][10][11].…”

Modeling and Monte Carlo simulation on photothermal effect in Gd3Al3Ga2O12:Ce3+/Y3Al5O12:Cr3+ layered composite ceramic

“…Layered ceramics have been widely used in solid‐state lasers 1 and light‐emitting diodes 2,3 due to their high thermal conductivity, strong mechanical strength, excellent optical transparency, and scintillation characteristics. Research by Kondrat'Eva et al 4 .…”