Aluminate - Aluminate Glasses

Aluminate Glasses

Alumina on its own cannot easily be made glassy with current techniques, however with the addition of a second compound many types of aluminate glasses can be formed. The glasses produced display a range of interesting and useful properties, such as high refractive index, good infrared transparency, and high melting point, as well as the ability to host laser active and fluorescent ions. Aerodynamic levitation is a key method used to study and produce many aluminate glasses. Levitation allows high purity to be maintained in the melt at temperatures in excess of 2000K.

Some materials that are known to form glass in binary combination with aluminum oxide are: rare earth oxides, alkaline earth oxides (CaO, SrO, BaO) lead oxide, and silicon dioxide.

Also, the Al₂O₃ (Aluminate) system has been discovered to form sapphire-like glass ceramics. Often, this ability is based upon compositions in which interplay between glass forming ability and glass stability is approximately balanced.