Zerodur Glass Ceramic

Zerodur is a glass ceramic made by schott glass that is designed and formulated to exhibit essentially zero thermal expansion over a wide temperature range.

Zerodur glass ceramic. An extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion cte for a wide range of temperatures. Schott offers zerodur as small finished components ultra light weight mirror substrates but also as mirror substrates for large segmented and monolithic astronomical telescopes. The material contains by weight 70 75 crystalline quartz in the form of crystallites approximately 50 nm in diameter which are embedded in a glass matrix. Description schott zerodur is a zero expansion glass ceramic with extraordinary properties.

It has been used for a number of very large telescope mirrors including gtc keck i keck ii and sofia as well as some smaller telescopes such as the gregor solar telescope. It is widely used in applications where unavoidable temperature changes could influence critical size and distance accuracies. It contains a crystallized phase and a rest glass phase which creates the unique properties of this exceptional material. The key properties of zerodur are.

Zerodur a registered trademark of schott ag is a lithium aluminosilicate glass ceramic produced by schott ag since 1968. Zerodur notation of the manufacturer. Zerodur is an inorganic glass ceramic with 70 to 78 of high quartz micro crystallites 50 to 80 nm in size embed ded in a remaining glassy phase. The highly technical glass ceramic highly technical glass ceramic delivers optical precision at nanometer scale manufacturing the primary mirror for the european southern observatory s eso extremely large telescope elt.

This remarkable property is useful where precision parts will face wide thermal conditions in application. Zerodur glass block. Zerodur is an inorganic non porous lithium aluminum silicon oxide glass ceramic characterized by evenly distributed nano crystals within a residual glass phase. The glass crystal ratio is adjusted so that.

Zerodur glass ceramic from schott is an inorganic non porous lithium aluminum silicon oxide material made by controlled volume crystallization. Zerodur is a highly homogeneous glass ceramic whose thermal and mechanical properties are extremely stable over a wide temperature range.