| Yttrium aluminum garnet (Y3Al5O12) transparent ceramic activated by neodymium is a new generation of solid-state laser material. It becomes a competitive substitute material for single crystal and glass because of its high chemical stability and excellent optical property. In comparison with Nd:YAG single crystal and Nd-glass, the characteristics of Nd:YAG transparent ceramics and its preparation technology offer several advantages, such as fabricated in large size easily, and produced in mass with lower cost, obtained higher output due to the high doping concentration. Therefore, the material is attracted wide attention in recent years.In this dissertation, the preparation of Nd:YAG transparent ceramics was presented in detail. Transparent polycrystalline Nd:YAG powder was synthesized by chemical co-precipitation method and sol-gel method respectively. Nd:YAG ceramics were produced by hot pressed sintering in the vacuum atmosphere with the dopant of Nd of 1at.% and 5at.% respectively, which were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and studied by factors test method. An optimum fabrication method of Nd:YAG ceramic is obtained, which is that the concentration of Nd3+ is 1at.% in the sol-gel precursor, that the molar ratio of citric acid and all cations is 6:5 and that the Nd:YAG ceramics are sintered at 1500℃in the vacuum atmosphere. The last research, the foreground of its application and the development of transparent YAG laser ceramics are also reviewed.
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