Laser Synthesis and Processing of Ceramic and Glass Materials

Dear Colleagues,

Ceramics and glasses are vital materials in our current society due to their outstanding properties. They find application in multiple fields, including automotive, aerospace, electronics, biomedical or chemical industries. However, the development of new products based on these materials, or the trend of further miniaturization of devices requires new processing methods for these materials.

Laser-based processing offers multiple advantages for these tasks over conventional processing, such as high throughput, accuracy, repeatability, high quality, no tool wear, no mechanical contact or cleanliness among others. Main current research or industrial applications of lasers for the processing of ceramic and glass materials include laser marking, drilling, scribing, cutting, or structuring.

On the other hand, lasers have also opened the opportunity to synthetize new ceramic and glass materials at different length scales, from the macro- (e.g., using three-dimensional printing techniques such as selective laser sintering) to the nanoscale (e.g., using techniques, such as laser ablation, pyrolysis).

Glasses are also at the heart of the laser industry, not only as materials to guide and manipulate the laser light, but also to produce it. They are used as lasing medium in many industrial and scientific laser sources. In this regard, ceramics will also play a central role in future laser sources. Polycrystalline ceramics have appeared as a practical candidate for laser generation, and they are anticipated to be a potential alternative to conventional glass and single-crystal laser based-sources.

This Special Issue aims to cover relevant contributions to illustrate the vast field of the laser-based synthesis and processing of ceramics and glasses, highlighting the above aspects. In particular, the scope of this Special Issue includes, without being limited to, the following themes: (i) laser-based synthesis of ceramics and glasses (laser ablation, laser-based rapid prototyping, laser pyrolysis, etc.), (ii) laser-based processing of ceramics and glasses (laser cutting, scribing, marking, welding, cladding, micromachining, structuring, etc.).

Dr. Antonio Riveiro Rodríguez 
Prof. Narendra Dahotre
Prof. Dr. Yung C. Shin
Guest Editors

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