Ceramic materials and components contribute essential passive and control functions (as subtrates, resistors, capacitors, actuators, and sensors) to a wide range of electrical and microelectronic devices and applications. This use has paralleled the dynamic growth in integrated circuit devices for telecommunications, computers, consumer electronics, and military and industrial applications.
The utility of ceramic components in these applications typically reflects their good insulating properties and such other unique properties as spontaneous polarization, magnetization, and the various barrier layer properties associated with significant resistive or capacitive changes. These properties all derive from peculiarities in crystal structure, composition, dopant level, thermal treatment, and developed microstructure. Added to these considerations are temperature and environmental stability as well as the substantial mechanical and dielectric strength, thermal shock resistance, and thermal conductance that many ceramic materials exhibit.
The various categories of ceramic materials include piezoelectrics, ferroelectrics, insulators, thick-film hybrid components, and superconductors, as well as semiconducting or conducting (oxide) compounds for sensor (voltage, temperature, humidity, gas, and oxygen) applications. The fundamental physical phenomena underlying the unique properties of these materials, and their applications in electronics, are explored in depth by area specialists. Detailed attention is given under each category of materials to the influences of composition modifications, precursor synthesis, processing, thermal treatment, and microstructure on the unique and prescribed properties of the materials, as well as to device possibilities and applications.

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