| Abstract Scope |
Spark plasma sintering (SPS), which can precisely control such sintering conditions as temperature, heating rate, the amount of uniaxial loading and holding time under vacuum, is highly potential in fabricating various types of functional materials. In particular, high densification rates attained by this technique enable suppressed grain growth during sintering hence fine-grained microstructures. For laser optics, it has been shown that SPS is also effective in fabricating some laser optics including laser materials with fine-grained microstructure, and sapphire/Nd:YAG ceramic composite materials. The microstructure, optical characteristics, and lasing properties concerning to these materials, and the future possibility of SPS for fabricating high-average power laser optics will be discussed. |