Synthesis Strategy for Functional Glasses and Glass-Ceramics

Glass and glass-ceramics play vital roles in today’s technology development. Although glasses are known to mankind from pre-historic period, its wide applicability as a candidate for various technological applications was realized during the past century. Advancement in communication technology was mainly possible with fabrication of high quality glass fibers. Glass-ceramics are derived from glasses and possess both the advantages of glasses and ceramics. In this chapter, initially, the origin of glasses and glass-ceramics are discussed followed by their classification depending up on the nature of glass forming constituents. Synthesis routes for preparation of different types of glasses are discussed in detail. Thermodynamics and kinetics of glass formation and its conversion to glass-ceramics are explained towards end of the chapter. Structure property correlation is an important aspect in any studies involving material development and this aspect is explained in detail in this chapter. Techniques like solid-state NMR, XPS, EXAFS which give mainly information on short-range order in glasses have been explained with examples. Importance of thermal techniques for understanding glass and ceramic science has been brought out in this chapter. Finally, the chapter ends with certain representative applications of glasses and glass-ceramics.