crystallineinglass

Crystallineinglass is not a standard term in materials science; in practice it is often used to refer to materials that contain crystalline phases within a glassy matrix. The most widely studied example of this concept is a glass-ceramic, or crystallized glass, produced by controlled heat treatment of a suitable glass to nucleate and grow crystals. This process yields a material that is partly crystalline and partly amorphous, with the microstructure tuned to achieve desired properties.

In glass-ceramics, the starting composition is typically a silicate glass formulated to crystallize into specific phases such as beta-eucryptite, spodumene, cristobalite, diopside, or mullite, depending on the formulation and heat-treatment regime. Crystallization is performed in at least two stages: nucleation at a lower temperature and crystal growth at a higher temperature. The resulting crystals are often kept submicron to micron-sized to preserve translucency or, if coarser, to produce a more opaque ceramic.

Properties and applications vary with composition and microstructure but commonly include increased strength and fracture toughness, reduced and more controllable thermal expansion, and enhanced thermal stability compared with the parent glass. Applications span cookware and kitchenware (historic examples include heat-resistant glass-ceramics), electrical and optical components, and specialized engineering parts where dimensional stability under temperature change is important.

Note that crystallineinglass is not a widely adopted term; most literature refers to these materials as glass-ceramics or crystallized glass.