Preparation of highly dispersed YAG nano-sized powder by co-precipitation method

Yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) nano-sized powder was synthesized using the co-precipitation method with ammonium hydrogen carbonate as precipitant, octyl polyoxyethylene sulfate sodium as surfactant and glycol as secondary surfactant. The phase evolution of the precursor during calcination at different temperatures was monitored. Results show that only a small amount of the intermediate phase was detected by calcining at 900 °C for 2 h, and pure phase YAG crystallites were obtained by calcining at 1000 °C for 2 h. It has been found that the presence of octyl polyoxyethylene sulfate sodium and glycol is beneficial for the dispersion of the resulting YAG powder. In the presence of surfactant, the synthesized product consists of highly dispersed nano-sized partilcles (30 nm on average).