Planetary Ball‐Milling Route of Powder Mixtures for Production of YAG:Sm ³⁺ Ceramics With Improved Optical Quality

ABSTRACT The impact of the specific amount of ball‐milling energy (SBME) as a function of ball‐milling parameters, including slurry solid loading and ball‐milling speed on particle size distributions (PSD) of powder mixtures, microstructure development, and optical properties of YAG:Sm 3+ ceramics was thoroughly examined for the first time. It was found that the powder mixtures with median particle size of about 0.5 µm having PSD width in the 0.7–0.8 range and skewness in the 0.6–0.8 range possess improved sinterability. The results indicate that optical transmittance of YAG:Sm 3+ ceramics exceeding 83% at 808 nm can be achieved using powder mixtures ball milled at 120–140 rpm, corresponding to SBME values in the range of 0.8–1.3 kJ/g. The optical transmittance of YAG:Sm 3 + ceramics can be further improved (83.7% at 808 nm) by fine‐tuning the SBME value via solid loading adjustment, with 21.5 vol% identified as optimal.