Cold Sintering: A Paradigm Shift for Processing and Integration of Ceramics.

This paper describes a sintering technique for ceramics and ceramic-based composites, using water as a transient solvent to effect densification (i.e. sintering) at temperatures between room temperature and 200 °C.

Efficient resonantly pumped tape cast composite ceramic Er:YAG laser at 1645 nm.

Laser operation of a composite ceramic Er:YAG rod is demonstrated at 1645 nm with a slope efficiency of 56.9% under resonant pumping at 1532.3 nm.

Comparison of the properties of tonpilz transducers fabricated with 001 fiber-textured lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate ceramic and single crystals.

Tonpilz transducers are fabricated from 001 fiber-textured 0.72Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-0.28PbTiO(3) (PMN-28PT) ceramics, obtained by the templated grain growth process, and PMN-28PT ceramic and Bridgman grown single crystals of the same composition.

Three-dimensional grain boundary spectroscopy in transparent high power ceramic laser materials.

Using confocal Raman and fluorescence spectroscopic imaging in 3-dimensions, we show direct evidence of inhomogeneous Nd(3+) distribution across grain boundaries (GBs) in Nd(3+):YAG laser ceramics. It is clearly shown that Nd(3+) segregation takes place at GBs leading to self-fluorescence quenching which affects a volume fraction as high as 20%. In addition, we show a clear trend of increasing spatial inhomogeneities in Nd(3+) concentration when the doping levels exceeds 3 at%, which is not detected by standard spectrometry techniques.