Ceramics and Composite Materials

Glass Ceramics

Glass-ceramics are fine-grained polycrystalline materials formed when glasses of suitable compositions are heat treated and thus undergo controlled crystallization to the lower energy, crystalline state. It must be emphasized here that only specific glass compositions are suitable precursors for glass-ceramics due to the fact that some glasses are too stable and difficult to crystallize whereas others result in undesirable microstructures by crystallizing too readily in an uncontrollable manner. In addition, it must also be accentuated that in order for a suitable product to be attained, the heat-treatment is critical for the process and a range of generic heat treatment procedures are used which are meticulously developed and modified for a specific glass composition.