Production and characterization of highly transparent novel magneto-optical Ho_(2)Zr_(2)O_(7) ceramics with anion-deficient fluorite structures

Based on material design idea,we employ a co-precipitation strategy to obtain sinterable Ho_(2)Zr_(2)O_(7) flu-orite particles,successfully leading to novel transparent Ho_(2)Zr_(2)O_(7) ceramics with good optical/magneto-optical properties.The resulting precipitation precursor is identified to be hydrated basic carbonate upon calcination at the optimum temperature of 1250℃into near-spherical Ho_(2)Zr_(2)O_(7) nanopowder with an average size of~64 nm and unimodal narrow size distribution.The crystal intrinsic oxygen defect in fluorite ceramic generally exists in the form of F+center.The best bulk specimen achieved in this work exhibits a high refractive index of~2.1 and a high transparency of~74.4%at 1000 nm comparable with the corresponding defect-free single crystal(~76.4%in theory).In the Ho_(2)Zr_(2)O_(7) structure system,the elec-tronic polarizability of O_(2)-anion generally remains constant around 2.2?3 in the visible region and the corresponding optical basicity is approximately 0.9.The developed magneto-optical transparent Ho_(2)Zr_(2)O_(7) ceramic has Verdet constants of-180±3,-157±5,-87±2,-54±2,and-43±2 rad T^(-1) m^(-1) at 515,635,780,980,and 1064 nm,respectively,which are roughly 1.2-fold higher than the commercial TGG crystal.