Fiber Ceramic Lasers

50 mm long, and 0.9 at.% doping level). Reproduced with permission from [329]. Copyright 2009, Elsevier 

Ikesue A, Aung YL, Lupei V (2014) Ceramic lasers. Cambridge Univtasity Press, Cambridge 

Ikesue A, Kinoshita T, Kamata K, Yoshida K (1995) Fabrication and optical properties of high-performance polycrystalline Nd-YAG ceramics for solid-state lasers. J Am Ceram Soc 78 1033-1040 

Greskovich C, Chemoch JP (1973) Polycrystalline ceramic lasers. J Appl Phys 44 4599-4606 

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Applications of transparent ceramics are covered in the last two chapters, with Chap. 9 focusing on solid-state lasers with transparent ceramics and Chap. 10 on all other applications of transparent ceramics. In Chap. 9, besides traditional transparent laser ceramics, advanced ceramic laser technologies, including composite ceramics and crystal fibers (not ceramics), are also included, in order to demonstrate new research and development direction of solid-state lasers. In Chap. 10, other applications, such as lighting, scintillation, armor, potential biomaterials, and so on, are summarized and discussed. 

One example is diode-pumped g-switched Nd YAG ceramic laser operating at 946 nm [131]. Figure 9.17 shows experimental schematic diagram of the diode-pumped actively g-switched 946-nm Nd YAG ceramic laser. A Nd YAG ceramic sample doped with 0.6 at.% Nd with a dimension of 04 mm x 5 nun was used. When using a fiber-coupled laser diode with the fiber diameter of 600 pm as the... 

Fig. 9.18 Average ou ut powers at 946 nm from the g-switched Nd YAG ceramic laser as a function of the incident pump power, with the coupling fiber of the pumping LD having a diameter of 600 pm. Reproduced with permission from [131]. Copyright 2009, John Wiley Sons...

CW 1617 nm emission with a slope eflflciency of 51.7 % has been observed in a 0.5 at.% Er YAG ceramic laser [184]. Eflflcient operation of the high-power erbium-doped polycrystalline Er YAG ceramic laser was resonantly pumped by using a high-power 1532-nm Er,Yb fiber laser. Lasing characteristics of Er YAG ceramics with different Er " concentrations were evaluated and compared. With an OC of 15 % transmission, the 0.5 at.% Er -doped YAG ceramic laser generated 14 W of output power at 1617 nm for 28.8 W of incident pump power at 1532 nm. 

Fig. 9.30 Experimental setup for the tunable Yb YAG ceramic laser. LD fiber-coupled diode laser, LI, L2 focusing lenses, DM flat dichroic mirror, M a concave mirror (ROC = 250 mm), and OC output coupler. Reproduced with permission from [209]. Copyright 2008, Elsevier...

Sayir, A., Greer III, L.C., Goldsby, J. and Oberle, L. (1994) Laser speckle micro-strain measurements on small diameter fibers. Ceram. Eng. Sci. Proc., 18 397-410. 

R. M. Kent and A. Vary, Tensile Strain Measurements of Ceramic Fibers Using Scanning Laser Acoustic Microscopy, Cer. Eng. Sci. Proc., 13[7-8], 271-278 (1992). 

Figure 6.12 Schematic of the laser-heated float zone technique of making ceramic fibers.

In addition to their role as teehnology enablers, ceramic components find widespread use today in elee-tronics, wireless communications, fiber optie eables, lasers, digital data storage, and eapaeitors. Emerging technologies in which ceramics play a key role inelude... 

Since the initial introduction of laser diffraction instrumentation in the 1970s, many different applications to panicle si/e aniilysis have been reported. Ihese have included measurements of si/e distributions of radioactive tracer particles, ink particles used in photocopy machines, zirconia fibers, alumina particles, droplets from electronic fuel injectors, crystal growth particles, coal powders, cosmetics, soils, resins, pharmaceuticals, metal catalysts, electronic materials, phoiugraphic emulsions, organic pigments, and ceramics. About a dozen instrument companies now produce LALLS instruments. Some I.AI.LS instruments have become popular as detectors for size-exclusion chromatography. 

Up to now, polymer pyrolysis has been investigated especially to develop ceramic fibers [46,47] and ceramic matrix for ceramic matrix composites [48-50]. More recently studies have been undertaken to exploit this method to develop ceramic thin films [51-53], foams [54], joints [55], and bulk materials [56]. Moreover, noncon-ventional heating systems such as laser [57], microwave heating [53], or even athermal conversion processes such as ion bombardment are just now starting to be applied to the polymer route and the preliminary results are very promising [58-60]. In this chapter we focus on the polymer processing of bulk ceramics obtained by pyrolysis of partially cross-linked preceramic bodies and of thin ceramic films (obtained either by traditional pyrolysis or by the innovative ion irradiation process). 

This work reports the development of a polymeric/sol-gel route for the deposition of silicon carbide and silicon oxycarbide thin films for applications such as heat-, corrosion-, and wear-resistant coatings, coatings on fibers for controlling the interaction with the matrix in ceramic matrix composites, or films in electronic and optoelectronic devices. This method, in which the pre-ceramic films are converted to a ceramic coating either by a conventional high temperature annealing or by ion irradiation, is alternative to conventional methods such as chemical or physical vapor deposition (CVD, PVD), molecular beam epitaxy, sputtering, plasma spray, or laser ablation, which are not always practical or cost efficient. 

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