Engineering of Ceramic Microstructures for Functionality

Abstract

A review. Properties and performances of inorg. materials, esp. those of glass and ceramics, are essentially a cooperative phenomenon established by the microstructure. In traditional formation of these materials by high temp. thermal processes, thermodn. (i.e. time, temp.) plays the detg. role of the microstructure. In "sol-gel" process inorg. substructures are arranged by chem. forces, operating near room temps. This fact allows significant noncompositional modification of the ultrastructure leading to formation of stable non-equil. materials with unusual properties. Some of the methods to achieve such modifications and their technol. significance are discussed. [on SciFinder(R)]