Patent ID: 8173084

Claim:
A process for making a ytterbium-doped yttrium oxide ceramic nanopowder, comprising: forming a wet precursor cake comprising water, a yttrium compound, and a ytterbium compound; transferring the precursor cake to a container containing a non-water washing agent having little or no hydrogen bonding capability, wherein the precursor cake and the washing agent form a suspension; stirring the suspension of the precursor cake and the washing agent until most of the water in the precursor cake is replaced with the washing agent and the precursor cake breaks up into particles, at least some of the particles being in the form of hard agglomerates; allowing the suspension to sit in the container for a period of time, wherein the hard agglomerates are collected at the bottom of the container; discarding the collected hard agglomerates and transferring the remaining suspension to a centrifuge bottle; centrifuging the suspension to remove additional particles from the suspension, wherein a loosely packed wet powder remains at the bottom of the centrifuge bottle; collecting the loosely packed wet powder from the bottom of the centrifuge bottle; drying the wet powder under heat; grinding the dried powder to produce a loosely packed ground powder; and calcining the ground powder at a temperature between about 400° C. and about 1300° C.; wherein the calcined ground powder is a nanopowder having a high uniformity and low presence of hard agglomerates.