Fabrication and characterization of highly transparent ZrO2-doped Tm2O3 ceramics

Abstract

Highly transparent polycrystalline Tm2O3 ceramics were successfully fabricated by vacuum sintering at temperatures from 1650 to 1850 °C for 8 h using commercial Tm2O3 and ZrO2 (1 at%) powders as starting materials. It is the first time that ZrO2 was reported as a sintering additive to prepare Tm2O3 transparent ceramics. The effects of sintering temperature on the optical transmittance and microstructure of Tm2O3 transparent ceramics were studied. The desired Tm2O3 ceramics with relative density of 99.8% and an average grain size of approximately 9.7 μm were obtained at 1800 °C and the in-line transmittance reached 75% at 880 nm and fluctuated around 80% from 2100 to 2400 nm, respectively. This study demonstrated that Tm2O3 transparent ceramics with higher in-line transmittance and smaller grain size could be prepared by using ZrO2 as sintering additive at a relatively lower vacuum sintering temperature compared to those already reported in open literatures.