New CaF2 ceramic for laser

TRANSPARENT METAL FLUORIDE CERAMIC

Inventors: Michel Mortier, Patrick Gredin, Pierre Aballea, Akiko Suganuma
Laboratory: Institut de Recherche de Chimie de Paris de l’École Supérieure Nationale de Chimie de Paris (UMR8247)
Technical domain: Optical amplification / Solid lasers
Intellectual property: PCT/EP2015/097008
Contact: PSL-Valorisation

Description:

A process for producing transparent metal fluoride ceramics has been developed. Its main target field is materials for laser optical amplification; these may be used, used in solid lasers, regardless of the mode of optical pumping (flash lamp, laser diode, laser other solid or gas ...). This method, developed with the CaF2 material doped by YbF3, is valid for any fluorinated compound with a cubic structure or of lower symmetry (MF2, AMF3, ABF4, AB3F10), for high transparency.
Very low cost and simple this process uses synthetized powders from simple precursors produced at ambient temperature. They are then washed and rinsed at the shaping temperature. Drying was carried out near room temperature (<50 ° C) and the sintering takes place for a short time (<1 hour) and at a temperature below the melting point (<700 ° C). There is no high-pressure stage and the initial shape of the green body is done without uniaxial or isostatic press. Such high transparency ceramics are obtained Without post sintering, and can be used after a simple surface polishing.

Possible Applications:

Optical laser amplification for high average powers, eg for proton therapy