Glass ceramics have many notable advantages. Some of those are thermal shock resistance, heat insulation, high strength, toughness, high temperature stability and isolation capabilities to name a few. Within Advanced Optics, there are three main products that are available at an industrial scale: Glass Ceramics, Macor®, and Corning® PYROCERAM®- Glass Code 9606.
Products
MACOR® gives the performance of a technical ceramic with the versatility of a high-performance polymer, while providing the machinability of a soft metal.
- Can be made into very complex shapes providing tight tolerance capability
- Its thermal and electrical insulation properties makes it also suitable in many different applications.
Corning® Pyroceram® glass-ceramic material is opaque, light gray in color, and has high strength, high elastic modulus, and uniform dielectric properties. It can be manufactured in ogival* shapes, hemispheres, pressware sheets, and various machined shapes.
Corning developed a new glass ceramic composition with a low CTE for better thermal shocks resistance and ability to be ion exchangeable for improved mechanical properties. This product had been developed under a thin sheet shape, about 60mm width and 1mm thin. Other bar shapes are also available.