NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN GLASS CHEMISTRY

Glass, although known for thousands of years, has been heavily investi gated in the past few years. This was mainly caused by the demand on a dvanced materials for optics and optoelectronics. Here, active laser g lasses and glasses for laser optics especially for the deep W-range pl ayed an important part. Other important developments were glass fibres for various wavelengths and optoelectronic devices, such as waveguide s. Additionally, new glass ceramics have focused a great deal of inter est. Besides those glass ceramics possessing extremely low thermal exp ansion, glass-ceramics for biomedical applications, e.g. as material f or human bone replacement as well as oriented glass-ceramics have inte nsively been studied.