Current sintering methods used to obtain transparent ceramics face several challenges, including strict processing conditions and limited shape and size control. Researchers led by South China University of Technology presented a new general strategy for constructing dual-phase transparent ceramics from hybridized glasses that offers shape and size control as well as the potential for functionalization.
Read MoreFabricating transparent ceramics is inherently challenging due to the excellent mechanical, thermal, and chemical stability of ceramics. Researchers in Germany showed powder injection molding could allow for high-throughput manufacturing of complex-shaped transparent ceramics.
Read MoreThe use of transparent ceramics as a gain medium in lasers is an evolving field, and there is still much to learn about how processing parameters affect the ceramics’ performance. Researchers in Singapore and China published two papers investigating the possible effects of a standard sintering aid and dispersant on lasing performance.
Read MoreTo meet the industry’s growing demand for customized manufacturing, researchers are increasingly interested in processing transparent ceramics using additive manufacturing. Guangran Zhang and Yiquan Wu of Alfred University demonstrated how highly transparent yttrium aluminum garnet ceramics could be fabricated via a lithography-based digital projection method.
Read MoreOptical isolators traditionally use single crystals to polarize light—could transparent ceramics be used instead? Researchers in Japan created high-performing transparent ceramics using lanthanide rare-earth oxides, materials previously believed to not be suited for optical applications.
Read MoreThe idea of harnessing photons rather than electricity to produce heat has gained increasing attention in recent years. In a new research brief, ACerS Fellow Akio Ikesue and colleagues describe a photonic heating system based on transparent yttria alumina garnet ceramics.
Read MoreFor self-driving vehicles to become a common reality, the laser surveying system LiDAR must be improved. Researchers from Alfred University developed a transparent ceramic that could prove to be an ideal lasing material for LiDAR.
Read MoreTransparent ceramics offer advantages over conventional glass and single-crystal technologies—could transparent nanoceramics be even more advantageous? Researchers show how pressureless glass crystallization could offer an easier way to synthesize transparent nanoceramics.
Read MoreJülich scientists created yttria-coated transparent zirconia ceramics that demonstrated fracture toughness values far higher than tempered glass. Their method is suitable for industrial mass production.
Read MoreBy processing samples of silicon nitride under high pressure and heat, researchers at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron have converted an originally opaque hexagonal crystal structure into optically transparent cubic silicon nitride.
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