Abstract

Transparent crystalline yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG; Y3Al5O12) is a dominant host material used in phosphors, scintillators, and solid state lasers. However, YAG single crystals and transparent ceramics face several technological limitations including complex, time-consuming, and costly synthetic approaches. Here we report facile elaboration of transparent YAG-based ceramics by pressureless nano-crystallization of Y2O3–Al2O3 bulk glasses. The resulting ceramics present a nanostructuration composed of YAG nanocrystals (77 wt%) separated by small Al2O3 crystalline domains (23 wt%). The hardness of these YAG-Al2O3 nanoceramics is 10% higher than that of YAG single crystals. When doped by Ce3+, the YAG-Al2O3 ceramics show a 87.5% quantum efficiency. The combination of these mechanical and optical properties, coupled with their simple, economical, and innovative preparation method, could drive the development of technologically relevant materials with potential applications in wide optical fields such as scintillators, lenses, gem stones, and phosphor converters in high-power white-light LED and laser diode.

Details

Title
Pressureless glass crystallization of transparent yttrium aluminum garnet-based nanoceramics
Author
Ma, Xiaoguang 1 ; Li, Xiaoyu 2 ; Li, Jianqiang 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Genevois, Cécile 4 ; Ma, Bingqian 2 ; Auriane Etienne 5 ; Wan, Chunlei 6 ; Véron, Emmanuel 4 ; Peng, Zhijian 7 ; Allix, Mathieu 4 

1  National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, CAS Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 
2  National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, CAS Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 
3  National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology, CAS Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; School of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 
4  CNRS, CEMHTI UPR 3079, Univ. Orléans, Orléans, France 
5  Groupe de Physique des Matériaux, UNIROUEN, CNRS, INSA Rouen, Normandie Univ, Rouen, France 
6  State Key Lab of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 
7  School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 
Pages
1-9
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Mar 2018
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03467-7
ProQuest document ID
2016523723
Copyright
© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.