Abstract

It was a dream of material scientists that the development of optical quality of ceramic materials to become comparable to that of the single crystal and glass materials. However, it was considered that this dream is theoretically or technologically impossible; hence no one has challenged to realize this foolish dream. In fact, the author demonstrated the existence of optical ceramic that is usable for the amplification of coherence beam with high efficiency in 1995 [1]. Nowadays, the development of optical ceramics has become worldwide boom [2] because of its potentiality for the achievement of novel functionalities that cannot be achieved in the conventional concepts. A recent trend in optics has gradually changed from single crystal to ceramic materials.

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