Influence of ammonium sulfate on YAG nanopowders and Yb:YAG ceramics synthesized by a novel homogeneous co-precipitation method

The addition of small amount of ammonium sulfate surfactant has significant effect on dispersion, particles distribution and sinterability of the resultant YAG and Yb:YAG powders via a homogeneous co-precipitation method. Compared with the undoped sample, the green body of Yb:YAG doped with ammonium sulfate has higher total shrinkage, linear shrinkage rate and relative density through sintering at 1600 °C. The resultant Yb:YAG powders can be sintered into transparent ceramics at 1700 °C through vacuum sintering.106