A second ceramic age—A new materials frontier

Abstract

A second ceramic age started in the mid-twentieth century as a new, exciting materials frontier. Eleetroceramics with phenomenally wide range of electrical resistivity (spread over 30 orders of magnitude) span insulators, semiconductors, metal-like conductors, ionic conductors, and, recently, superconductors. They also include ferroelectrics, piezoelectries, pyroelectrics and electro-optics beside ferrites. Advances in electroceramics have been fascinating and rapid, leading to unprecedented rates of industrial growth. Age-old limitations of poor mechanical strength and brittleness of ceramics are being overcome by outstanding roughness and strength achieved in zirconiabased ceramics exploiting the martensitie transformation at the tetragonal-monoelinic