These materials have long been made from natural mineral materials collected from mountains and rivers, using empirical methods involving heat treatment. Today, it is possible to produce ceramics as modern functional materials with such excellent features as heat resistance, pressure resistance, anti-corrosiveness and electric properties, by carefully selecting raw materials and strictly controlling manufacturing processes. Modern ceramics won social recognition in the field of electric applications. The diffusion of electric lamps was realized in the 1870s, largely because it became possible to mass-produce highly effective ceramic insulators of identical shape. Since then, the ceramic development has always been closely related to the requirements of the society, as exemplified by automobiles and spark plugs, insulators and alumina crucibles and the like.
Ceramics is a science of solids.
Research into gases and liquids has been conducted since early times, and many useful laws and phenomena have been established. With regard to solids, it is generally known today that the arrangements of constituent atoms and the electronic conditions surrounding them are the key to understanding. Dr. Kingery's outstanding works resulted in the development of ceramic sensors and capacitors in the 1960s, the ceramic fever of the 1970s and the super-conductive ceramic fever from 1986. Materials scientific analysis of heat conductivity of ceramics Ceramics are highly heat resistant and have a high melting point, and their heat conductivity is greatly influenced by the particles, pores, grain boundaries, secondary phase and the like which constitute sintered ceramics. Starting with the development of a heat conductivity measuring method, Dr. Kingery theoretically and empirically elucidated the relation between ceramic microstructures and heat conductivity.