Preparation of a Φ60 mm Nd:YAG transparent ceramic disk

A high quality Nd:YAG transparent ceramic disk (Φ60 mm×2mm) has been prepared by the solid-state reactive sintering technique, which was sintered satisfactorily at 1780°C for 20h. The high transparency of the sample has been assured by its pore-free microstructure and pure YAG phase composition with the in-line transmittances up to 84.5% at 1064nm and 82.5% at 400nm, respectively. The optical homogeneity of the disk was evaluated by the interference stripes with the PV and RMS values being 0.099λ and 0.013λ, respectively. The maximum output power of 2052W with the slope efficiency of 39.0% was obtained at 500Hz repetition rate. Results indicated that the Nd:YAG transparent ceramics could be a potential option for high power disk laser.