Fabrication and optical properties of Y2O3-based ceramics with broad emission bandwidth

Abstract

In this article, we report on the fabrication and optical properties of highly transparent yttria ceramics for lasers active media with broadband gain profile. Laser synthesis method was used to produce Y 2O 3-based nanopowders doped with 1mol.% Nd 3+ or Yb 3+ for these transparent ceramics. The additives of sesquioxides Lu 2O 3 and Sc 2O 3 were used along with ZrO 2 to disorder the crystalline structure. The porosity and average grain size decrease with these additives and the emission bandwidths of Nd 3+ ( 4F 3/2→ 4I 11/2) and Yb 3+ ( 2F 5/2→ 2F 7/2) transitions widen to 40 and 60nm, respectively. Laser operation with the slope efficiency of 29% was obtained in [(Yb 0.01Lu 0.24Y 0.75) 2O 3] 0.88(ZrO 2) 0.12 ceramic sample. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.