Glass & Ceramics

Glass and ceramics have common morphological features and structures. Glass is a non-crystalline, or amorphous, solid material. Glasses, in general, are optically transparent and brittle. In a scientific context, glass is everything that is solid and has a non-crystalline structure, as well as a glass transition stage that takes place when heated towards the liquid state. As a result, glasses can be made of many different classes of materials, such as aqueous solutions, ionic melts, metallic alloys, molecular liquids, and polymers.

Glass can be used as a thermal insulator, as a reinforcement material, as container glass, as flat glass, or as optoelectronic material. Glass products are supplied to value-added industries in semiconductor device manufacturing, photovoltaics (PV), other solar products and equipment, consumer electronics, building materials, consumer products, and other specialty end uses such as mirrors.

A ceramic is a nonmetallic, inorganic solid that, much like glass, is created through heating and subsequent cooling. A ceramic can even be a glass when they have an amorphous or non-crystalline structure. However, most ceramic materials have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure. The technical definition of ceramics is therefore typically limited to inorganic crystalline materials, in contrast to noncrystalline materials, which would be considered glasses. There are many different kinds of ceramic materials and are represented in diverse applications for nuclear fuel, porcelain, earthenware, ceramic goods, statuettes, ampoules, building tiles, superconductors, orbital entry heat shields, industrial heating elements, thermal processing and firing equipment, glazings, and ultrasonic transducers.