Highly-durable ceramic waveguides, 3D-printed, handle extreme optical power densities far beyond glass fiber thermal breakdown limits

https://phys.org/news/2026-08-3d-ceramic-waveguide-lasers-surpass.html

"silica glass fiber ceramic waveguides exhibit low thermal tolerance/ inferior power-handling... overcome using ink write additive-manufacturing: extrude ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet filaments into undoped ceramic monolithic waveguides, with minimal interfacial defects... >10X increased output power while maintaining compact footprint... scales, boosting laser power outputs by order of magnitude: heavy manufacturing, defense (counter-drone systems), industrial laser machining"