of yttrium ceramic nanomaterials was carried out by General Electric in the 1970s in Schenectady and Cleveland, motivated by lighting and ceramic laser applications. Yttralox, transparent yttrium oxide Y2O3 containing ~ 10% thorium oxide (ThO2) was fabricated by Greskovich and Woods. The additive served to control grain growth during densification, so that porosity remained on grain boundaries and not trapped inside grains where it would be quite difficult to eliminate during the initial stages of sintering. Typically, as polycrystalline ceramics densify during heat treatment, grains grow in size while the remaining porosity decreases both in volume fraction and in size. Optically transparent ceramics must be virtually pore-free. GE's transparent Yttralox was followed by GTE's lanthana-doped yttria with similar level of additive. Both of these materials required extended firing times at temperatures above 2000 °C. La2O3 – doped Y2O3 is of interest for infrared (IR) applications because it is one of the longest wavelength transmitting oxides. It is refractory with a melting point of 2430 °C and has a moderate coefficient of thermal expansion coefficient. The thermal shock and erosion resistance is considered to be intermediate among the oxides, but outstanding compared to non-oxide IR transmitting materials. A major consideration is the low emissivity of yttria, which limits background radiation upon heating. It is also known that the phonon edge gradually moves to shorter wavelengths as a material is heated. In addition, yttria itself, Y2O3 has been clearly identified as a prospective solid-state laser material. In particular, lasers with ytterbium as dopant allow the efficient operation both in cw operation and in pulsed regimes. At high concentration of excitations (of order of 1%) and poor cooling, the quenching of emission at laser frequency and avalanche broadband emission takes place. Future The Livermore team is also exploring new ways to chemically synthesize the initial nanopowders. Borrowing on expertise developed in CMS over the past 5 years, the team is synthesizing nanopowders based on sol–gel processing, and then sintering them accordingly in order to obtain the solid-state laser components. Another technique being tested utilizes a combustion process in order to generate the powders by burning an organic solid containing yttrium, aluminum, and neodymium. The smoke is then collected, which consists of spherical nanoparticles. The Livermore team is also exploring new forming techniques (e.g. extrusion molding) which have the capacity to create more diverse, and possibly more complicated, shapes. These include shells and tubes