3. Properties of ceramic materials

The term "ceramic" primarily refers to the technology used to manufacture an object. By extension, a ceramic material is a material characterized by the fact that it is manufactured using ceramic technology. It is therefore not possible a priori to associate properties with ceramics, whose manufacturing technology enables the use of a very large number of distinct materials whose physical properties may be very different from one another. In this section, we will draw up a non-exhaustive list of the different properties of various ceramic materials, which can be exploited in the manufacture of electronic components. In addition to the raw characteristics of the various materials, we'll see that ceramic technology is unique in that it enables us to control inhomogeneous components: inhomogeneity in composition, enabling us to apply the laws of mixtures to define the characteristic in question;...