Direct Ink Writing of Cellulose - plasticized Aqueous Ceramic Slurry for YAG Transparent Ceramics

Additive manufacturing based on direct ink writing (DIW) opens a novel means to prepare transparent ceramics, which can comprise of both complex structures and multiple functional phases. However, there still remains a vital challenge to obtain a stable and printable aqueous ceramic slurry with high solids loading, which is important for forming high quality transparent ceramics. Therefore, we report a fabrication method by using celluloses for enhancing the plasticity of the aqueous YAG ceramic slurry with high solids loading up to 52 vol. %, by which both of the printability of ceramic slurries and the optical quality of transparent ceramics have been considerably improved. In the example, the in-line transmittance at 1064 nm for a 1.2 mm thick YAG ceramic can approach about 81.5%. This research provides a facile DIW method for preparing transparent ceramic from water - based slurry.