Fabrication of Advanced Glass and Ceramics by Containerless Levitation Process

Abstract

Recently, researches on bulk glass and glass-ceramics have attracted the attention due to their low cost optical materials of the future. In this study, the formation of bulk spherical RAlO₃ (R=rare-earth elements) glass and crystalline phases have been investigated due to their unique features in terms of the solidification process, glass structure and optical properties. Aerodynamic levitator was used to undercool the melt below the melting temperature. RAlO₃ sample was levitated and completely melted by a CO₂ laser and then cooled by turning off the CO₂ laser and solidified. In the RAlO₃ system, La, Nd and Sm aluminum perovskites solidified as glass and Eu to Lu aluminum perovskites solidified as crystalline phases. The as-prepared glasses showed a high refractive index of ~1.89, suggesting that containerless levitation is an elegant technique for the fabrication of new glass and crystalline ceramics from an undercooled melt.