A new, to the best of our knowledge, 3D additive manufacturing technique utilizing particle-loaded ink jet printing to fabricate transparent ceramic Yb:YAG planar waveguides for laser gain media was demonstrated. Rheological optimization of YAG particle-loaded inks resulted in successful droplet formation and printing resolution. Planar waveguides composed of a Yb:YAG guide encased in undoped YAG cladding were printed with guide thicknesses ranging between 25 and 350 µm and consolidated to high optical quality via solid-state sintering. Sufficiently low optical (1–3%/cm) and intermodal scatter allowed single-mode propagation with a core/clad index difference of $\Delta {n}\sim{5.0} \times {{10}^{- 4}}$ (corresponding to 3 at.% Yb). The waveguides were cladding-pumped longitudinally with a 940 nm diode array resulting in 23.6% slope efficiency in 2 ms pulsed operation.

中文翻译：

---

透明陶瓷Yb：YAG平面波导的材料喷射印刷

就我们所知，一种新的3D增材制造技术得到了证明，该技术利用粒子加载的喷墨打印技术制造了用于激光增益介质的透明陶瓷Yb：YAG平面波导。YAG颗粒油墨的流变优化可成功实现液滴形成和印刷分辨率。由封装在未掺杂YAG包层中的Yb：YAG波导组成的平面波导以25至350 µm的波导厚度进行印刷，并通过固态烧结固结成高光学质量。足够低的光学（1-3％/ cm）和模式间散射允许单模传播，芯/包层折射率差为$ \ Delta {n} \ sim {5.0} \ times {{10} ^ {-4}} $（相当于3 at。％Yb）。波导通过940 nm二极管阵列进行纵向包层泵浦，在2 ms脉冲操作中产生23.6％的斜率效率。