Highly transparent ceramics obtained from jet milled sesquioxide powders synthesized by co-precipitation method

Abstract

High purity Yb3+ doped Lu2O3 powder has been synthesized by the co-precipitation method. The powders underwent a jet milling at various feed rate using a commercial jet mill machine. It is found that jet milling is very effective in breaking up of large agglomerates without cross-contamination. Median agglomerate size decreased from 8.74 μm to 1.06 μm when jet milled at a feed rate 0.75 lb/hr. There was no noticeable increase in impurities picked up during the jet milling process in the final powder obtained after a sacrificial run that was carried out for the purpose of conditioning the surface of the liner. Homogeneous, uniform, and highly transparent ceramic was obtained from the ceramic hot pressed with the final jet milled powder compared to the one made from as-produced powder where some defects and splotches are often observed. Transmission of the Yb3+:Lu2O3 ceramics obtained from the jet milled powder is very close to the theoretical limit, demonstrating the excellent quality of the transparent ceramic.