Novel Visible-Band Transparent Ceramic Laser Material Mn:MgAl2O4

In this paper, transparent ceramics Mn:MgAl2O4, which are potentially applicable in visibleband laser field, were prepared and their light transmission and photoluminescence properties were investigated. In experiment, Mn:MgAl2O4 powders with two kinds of doping concentrations of 0.5 and 1.0 at% were synthesized through a high-temperature calcination method with NH4Al(SO4)2·12H2O and MgSO4·7H2O as raw materials, and with MnSO4·H2O as dopant. Transparent ceramics Mn:MgAl2O4 were prepared through vacuum hot-pressing sintering at 1750oC for 1 h, and subsequent vacuumannealing at 1700oC for 2 h. The samples were measured by means of light transmission and photoluminescence. The results show that transparent ceramics Mn:MgAl2O4 can be prepared by a low-cost powder technique and vacuum hot-pressing sintering. Two channels of visible-band luminescence, one peak around 520nm and one wideband centered at 650nm, respectively, can be shown. The intensity of their luminescence increases with increasing doping concentration. Obviously, it possesses a potential application in the field of visible-band solid tunable laser material with high doping concentration.