Fabrication and microstructure of cerium doped lutetium aluminum garnet (Ce:LuAG) transparent ceramics by solid-state reaction method

• We fabricate Ce doped lutetium aluminum garnet ceramics by solid-state method.
• The raw materials include Lu2O3 nanopowders synthesized by co-precipitation method.
• The density of the transparent ceramics reach 99.7% of the theoretical value.
• The optical transmittance of the bulk ceramic at 550 nm was 57.48%.
• Some scattering centers decrease the optical characteristic of the ceramic.

Polycrystalline Ce3+ doped lutetium aluminum garnet (Ce:LuAG) transparent ceramics fabricated by one step solid-state reaction method using synthetic nano-sized Lu2O3, commercial α-Al2O3 and CeO2 powders were investigated in this paper. The green compacts shaped by the mixed powders were successfully densified into Ce:LuAG transparent ceramics after vacuum sintering at 1750 °C for 10 h. The in-line optical transmittance of the Ce:LuAG ceramic made by home-made Lu2O3 powders could reach 57.48% at 550 nm, which was higher than that of the ceramic made by commercial Lu2O3 powders (22.96%). The microstructure observation showed that light scattering centers caused by micro-pores, aluminum segregation and refraction index inhomogeneities induced the decrease of optical transparency of the Ce:LuAG ceramics, which should be removed and optimized in the future work.

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