Research facilities

Synthesis and processing

• Glass melting furnaces; Automated robotic glass melting system.
• Pressure chamber/furnaces for thermal treatments (gas flow, vacuum, glove box)
• Powder processing: high-energy planetary ball mills (dry, wet), sieving, mixing, rheometer.
• Heating microscope (shrinkage); Heating stage microscope (in situ crystallization)
• Setups for solution and sol gel synthesis (glove box, rotary evaporator, spin/deep coating)

Thermal analysis

• Rotational viscometry; Dilatometry (horizontal and vertical)
• Thermobalances with simultaneous DSC or DTA; Large thermogravimetric analyser
• Dynamic-mechanic thermal analysis; Rheometer, particle size analysis

Structural and microstructural analysis

• X-ray diffraction, MEV and TEM microscopy (available at Dept. 6 – BAM)
• Laser scanning and light microscopy
• Vertical dilatometry; IR spectrometry (microscopy); Pycnometry (density)
• Mechanical analysis: Resonance frequency damping analysis (RFDA, E, G, µ), double cantilever beam (DCB, crack propagation), Vickers indentation

Spectroscopic characterization

• UV-Vis-NIR spectrometry
• High resolution NMR spectroscopy (available in Dept. 6 - BAM)
• Steady state and time resolved Photoluminescence; quantum yields (in Dept. 1 - BAM)