Fabrication and planar waveguide laser behavior of YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG composite ceramics by tape casting

Planar waveguide laser output was successfully demonstrated on Nd:YAG sandwich composite ceramics. Tape casting method combined with vacuum sintering technology was used to fabricate this sample. The core layer was 0.1 mm thickness with Nd doping concentration of 2 at.%. Clean morphology of microstructure was observed with average grain size of 10 μm. The sample exhibited high optical transmittance of above 80% at the wavelength of 632 nm. With the quasi-monolithic Fabry-Perot cavity configuration, the maximum slope efficiency of 63% was achieved in continuous wave (C.W.) operation mode, with a maximum output power of 840 mW and threshold absorbed pump power of about 0.16 W.