Fabrication and properties of lasing grade Nd:Y2O3 transparent ceramics with ZrO2 and MgO additives

Nd:Y 2 O 3 transparent ceramics were fabricated by vacuum pre-sintering and post-hot isostatic pressing with ZrO 2 and MgO as sintering additives. It was found that binary additives not only promoted the densification of Y 2 O 3 ceramics, but also decreased the pre-sintering temperature by at least 150 °C compared with the single addition of ZrO 2 . The best quality sample with 1 at.% ZrO 2 and 0.06 at.% MgO was pre-sintered at 1550 °C and post-HIPed at 1500 °C. The average grain size was approximately 0.96 μm, and the in-line transmittance reached 75.9 % at 400 nm and 81.4 % at 1000 nm. The ceramic also exhibits good optical homogeneity, which is evaluated by the interference stripes with the PV and RMS values of 385.8 nm and 21.3 nm, respectively. Continuous wave laser operation of the sample was demonstrated, and a maximum output power of 1.73 W at 1080.4 nm was achieved with a slope efficiency of 11.3 %.