Pre-evaluation method for the spectroscopic properties of YAG bulk materials by sol–gel synthetic YAG powder

We propose a convenient method for pre-evaluating the spectroscopic properties of luminescent impurity doped YAG by sol–gel synthetic powder. Three synthetic methods, the sol–gel, normal-strike, and reverse-strike methods, are examined for their ability as a predictor and the sol–gel method proved the most effective of the three in experiments on crystallinity, particle size, and spectroscopic properties. The sol–gel Nd:YAG powder agrees well with that of a single crystal or ceramic YAG regarding the luminescent spectrum, the intensity, and the lifetime, even though the powder sintered at a low temperature of 1100 °C in comparison with the YAG crystal melting point of 1970 °C. These facts suggest that the sol–gel synthetic powder is the most effective and the easiest technique for evaluating spectroscopic properties of bulk YAG materials before fabricating the final materials.