…for producing ceramic powders is sol-gel processing. Stable dispersions, or sols, of small particles (less than 0.1 micrometre) are formed from precursor chemicals such as metal alkoxides or other metalorganics. By partial evaporation of the liquid or addition of a suitable initiator, a polymer-like, three-dimensional bonding takes place within the…

…this technique, known as the sol-gel route, alcoholic solutions of organometallic precursors, generally alkoxides such as tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), are hydrolyzed with water at low temperatures while stirring vigorously. Hydrolysis promotes chelation, or the formation of network-type atomic connections, until the mass gels. The gel is then carefully dried to…

In sol-gel synthesis, small molecules in a liquid solution chemically link up with each other, forming a disordered network. It is possible to take a crystalline solid and convert it into an amorphous solid by bombarding it with high-kinetic-energy ions. Under certain conditions of composition and…