Manufacturing issues and optical properties of rare-earth (Y, Lu, Sc, Nd) aluminate garnets composite transparent ceramics

In this work, a comparative study of reactive sintering and optical properties of three laser composite transparent ceramics doped with neodymium: Nd:YAG/Nd:YS1AG, Nd:YAG/Nd:LuAG and Nd:YS1AG/Nd:LuAG has been achieved. Samples were manufactured thanks to pressureless co-sintering under vacuum of bilayer powder compacts. The reaction sequence from primary oxides to final garnet phases has been investigated. Similar dilatometric behavior was observed during reactive-sintering for each composition. Differential shrinkage can be thus accommodated to some extent. Second, this work has shown that the intermediate zone at composites interface is composed of single-phased garnet solid-solution with continuous evolution from one side to the other. The thickness of the interdiffusion zone was found to be limited to about 100 μm in all cases and appeared to be well described by classical diffusion laws of Fick and Whipple-Le Claire. The analyses of spectroscopic properties of transparent ceramics composites have finally shown that composite ceramics should be suitable to produce dual wavelength emission for terahertz generation.