A method of manufacturing a doped polycrystalline ceramic optical device includes mixing a plurality of transition metal complexes and a plurality of rare-earth metal complexes to form a metal salt solution, heating the metal salt solution to form a heated metal salt solution, mixing the heated metal salt solution and an organic precursor to induce a chemical reaction between the heated metal salt solution and the organic precursor to produce a plurality of rare-earth doped crystalline nanoparticles, and sintering the plurality of rare-earth doped nanoparticles to form a doped polycrystalline ceramic optical device having a rare-earth element dopant that is uniformly distributed within a crystal lattice of the doped polycrystalline ceramic optical device.