Optical properties and laser oscillation of Yb3+, Er3+ co-doped Y3Al5O12 transparent ceramics

•Transparent Yb3+ and Er3+ co-doped Y3Al5O12 (Yb, Er:YAG) ceramics have been synthesized simply.•The structural, optical, and spectroscopic properties were investigated in detail.•The 1.6 μm laser was realized with the commercial laser diode at 970 nm.

We reported a kind of Yb3+ and Er3+ co-doped Y3Al5O12 (Yb, Er:YAG) transparent ceramics fabricated by using one-step vacuum sintering. The decent optical properties of the samples, e.g., high in-line transmittance up to 83.4% (at 1.6 μm), are benefit from their fine structures, in which the average grain size is 15 μm, without any pores spotted within the scope. The absorption around 970 nm of this co-doped ceramic reaches nearly 4.8 times that of the single Er3+ doped YAG. Laser operation at 1645 nm was evaluated by using a commercial laser diode emitting at 970 nm. The maximum output power of 155 mW was acquired with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 2.8%.