Nd:YAG transparent ceramics fabricated by direct cold isostatic pressing and vacuum sintering

The sintering behavior of neodymium doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) ceramics was investigated on the basis of densification trajectory, microstructure evolution and transmittance. Nd:YAG ceramics with in-line transmittance of 83.9% at 1064 nm and 82.5% at 400 nm were obtained by direct cold isostatic pressing (CIP) at 250 MPa and solid-state reactive sintering at 1790 °C for 30 h under vacuum. Compared with the porosity and the average pore diameter of the sample from uniaxial dry-pressing followed by CIP, those from direct CIP are much smaller. The samples pressed at 250 MPa were sintered from 1500 °C to 1750 °C for 0.5–20 h to study their sintering behavior. At the temperature higher than 1500 °C, pure YAG phase is formed, followed by the densification and grain growth process. The relative density and the grain size increase with the increase of sintering time and temperature, and the sintering behavior is more sensitive to temperature than holding time. The mechanism controlling densification and grain growth at sintering temperature of 1550 °C is grain boundary diffusion.