The stuff of which high-tech ceramics are made doesn't disclose its enormous potential at first sight. While traditional ceramics are produced from natural resources, high-performance ceramics are made from purest oxide, nitride, carbide, boride, and silicide. It is then sintered at temperatures of 1,000 to 2,000 degree centigrade. Corresponding to the respective combination of ingredients, high-tech ceramics will have a wide array of different characteristics and advantages. Only diamonds, in Mohs scale, are harder.
Ceramic tools can even cut steel, for example.
High isolation properties against heat and cold. A ceramic pressure plate, which is adopted only by the Contax RTS III, keeps film extremely flat, so that the focused image may be recorded precisely on the film. Laboratory testing shows that this unique pressure plate permits the highest possible level of focusing accuracy.