ABSTRACT
This definition encompasses everything from high-purity single-crystal electronic substrates to advanced technological materials such as nonmetallic compounds with special magnetic, ferroelectric, and superconducting characteristics, to common commercial supplies and wares, including pottery, refractories, cements and clays, glass, porcelain enamels, abrasives, pigments, and numerous mineral products. Almost no industry is unaffected by the influence of ceramics, both in product design and fabrication processes. It is hard to imagine, for instance, a machine-tool industry without abrasives, an automobile industry without glass, a building industry with no cement, or an electronics industry devoid of insulators.
