The Advanced Optical Ceramics Lab, created four years ago, is home to the processing and characterization of ceramic materials for highly demanded optical applications.
The following text and pictures highlight our facility's equipment and the respective applications of each. It should be noted that these represent only some of the instruments and equipment that are contained within our laboratory. We also have access to advanced instrumentation (TEM, SEM, EMPA, XRD, etc.) within the Stanford Nanocharacterization Laboratory of the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials (GLAM) as well as Ginzton laboratory.
Our Moore 175 laboratory is the location of the wet chemistry and nano-powder preparation. Depending on the study, it is sometimes necessary to synthesize high-purity powders or powder precursors. Standard fume hoods are provided for dealing with volatiles and environmentally sensitive precursors. Equipment located here includes pH meters, a high energy ultrasonicator (often used for breaking up powder agglomerates in suspensions), and a de-airing station for removing air from suspensions.
Our lab has powder processing including a spray-dryer and shaping capabilities such as a ball-mill, a jet-mill, slip casting equipments, cold-uniaxial and isostatic presses and ashing furnaces for burning-out organic binders.
The Lab has a variety of sintering furnaces:
- 3 High-temperature furnaces for sintering in air (1700°C Lindberg-Blue and 2 box furnaces)
- High-vacuum and high-temperature furnaces for pressureless sintering (2200°C, 10-6 torr, Oxy-Gon, Inc., and an RF system).
- 2 Tube furnaces for annealing in controlled atmospheres
- 1 Hot-isostatic press (2000°C, 200 MPa, AIP)
- 2 Hot-uniaxial presses (2000°C, 40 MPa, Thermal Technologies, Inc.)
- Vertical tube furnaces for thermal treatments such as vapor thermal equilibration.
The Advanced Optical Ceramics Laboratory also has several crystal growth furnaces.
As a part of the scintillation ceramics program, a gamma-ray spectrometry measurement set-up is also available (not located in the Moore Lab).