Provided herein are nanofibers and processes of preparing nanofibers. In some instances, the nanofibers are metal and/or ceramic nanofibers. In some embodiments, the nanofibers are high quality, high performance nanofibers, highly coherent nanofibers, highly continuous nanofibers, or the like. In some embodiments, the nanofibers have increased coherence, increased length, few voids and/or defects, and/or other advantageous characteristics. In some instances, the nanofibers are produced by electrospinning a fluid stock having a high loading of nanofiber precursor in the fluid stock. In some instances, the fluid stock comprises well mixed and/or uniformly distributed precursor in the fluid stock. In some instances, the fluid stock is converted into a nanofiber comprising few voids, few defects, long or tunable length, and the like.

Provided is a method for producing an inorganic oxide in the form of a thin film, the method including a step of bringing a first liquid and a second liquid into contact with each other, the first liquid having an inorganic oxide precursor dissolved therein, the second liquid phase-separating from the first liquid and having a substance dissolved therein, the substance reacting with the inorganic oxide precursor of the first liquid to form an inorganic oxide derived from the inorganic oxide precursor. The segment size of the first liquid at the time of contact between the first and second liquids is 500 μm or smaller.

A Cr:YAG sintered body including Al, Y, Cr, Ca, Mg, Si, and O, and component contents in the sintered body satisfying conditional expressions of 1) to 3) below, provided in the Conditional expression, each chemical symbol represents a component content (atppm).

|(Y+Ca)/(Al+Cr+Si+Mg)−0.6|<0.001;  1)

0≤(Ca+Mg)−(Cr+Si)≤50 atppm; and  2)

50≤Si≤500 atppm  3)

The embodiment of the present invention is to provide a Cr:YAG sintered body which exhibits high transparency and has a high Cr.sup.4+ conversion ratio, and its production method.

A method for masking the appearance of a support structure underlying a highly translucent ceramic dental restoration s provided. The porous form of a zirconia ceramic dental restoration is treated with a liquid masking composition comprising 0.4 wt % to 50 wt % of one or more masking agents. The masking composition is applied to the internal surface of a restoration and a region of the facial surface of the restoration that is opposite the internal surface. After application of the masking compositions, treated zirconia restoration is sintered to greater than 98% theoretical density.

A sandwich-structured dielectric material for pulse energy storage is provided as well as a preparation method thereof. Employing a sandwich structure and combining the properties of ceramic-glass materials prepares a high performance dielectric material for pulse energy storage, in which the ceramic dielectric is core-shell structured powder of Ba.sub.xSr.sub.1-xTiO.sub.3 coated with SiO.sub.2, and the glass material is alkali-free glass AF45, of which the chemical composition is 63% SiO.sub.2-12% BaO-16% B.sub.2O.sub.3-9% Al.sub.2O.sub.3. AF45 alkali-free glass paste is spin-coated on both sides of the ceramic and calcined to get a layer-structured material of glass-ceramic-glass.

A method for producing a solid composition according to the present disclosure is a method for producing a solid composition that is used for forming a functional ceramic having a first crystal phase. The method for producing a solid composition includes: producing an oxide composed of a second crystal phase different from the first crystal phase; and mixing the oxide and an oxo acid compound.

The present disclosure relates to an electrode material that includes a solid core particle having an outer surface and including at least one of a Group II element, a Group III element, a Group IV element, a Group V element, and/or a Group VI element, and a layer including a polymer, where the solid core particle has a characteristic length between greater than zero nanometers and 1000 nm, the layer substantially covers all of the outer surface, the layer has a thickness between greater than zero nanometers 100 nm, and the layer is capable of elastically stretching as a result of expansion and contraction by the solid core.

A method of manufacturing a ceramic dielectric, including: heat-treating a barium precursor or a strontium precursor, a titanium precursor, and a donor element precursor to obtain a conducting or semiconducting oxide, preparing a mixture including the conducting or semiconducting oxide and a liquid-phase acceptor element precursor, and sintering the mixture to form a ceramic dielectric, wherein the ceramic dielectric includes a plurality of grains and a grain boundary between adjacent grains, and wherein the plurality of grains including an insulating oxide comprising an acceptor element derived from the acceptor element precursor.

Disclosed herein are embodiments of a printable composition that can be used to make printed products of a chosen material chemistry that have different levels of porosity within the printed product's structure Also disclosed herein are embodiments of a printed product that has multiple levels of porosity throughout its structure, which can include a macroscale level of porosity, a microscale level of porosity, a nanoscale level of porosity and any combination thereof. These printed products can be made using a 3-D printer and can be made from a single printable composition without the need to add different structural components during the production process. Also disclosed herein are embodiments of a method for making and using a printed product.

A polycrystalline YAG sintered body, wherein, when dimensions of a smallest rectangular solid surrounding a YAG sintered body are A mm×B mm×C mm, a maximum value (A, B, C) is 150 mm or less, a minimum value (A, B, C) is more than 20 mm and 40 mm or less, and an optical loss coefficient when light of a wavelength of 300 to 1500 nm (excluding wavelengths which result in absorption of light by an additive element) is transmitted therethrough is 0.002 cm.sup.−1 or less. Moreover, a polycrystalline YAG sintered body, wherein, when dimensions of a smallest rectangular solid surrounding a YAG sintered body are A mm×B mm×C mm, a maximum value (A, B, C) is more than 150 mm and 300 mm or less, a minimum value (A, B, C) is more than 5 mm and 40 mm or less, and an optical loss coefficient when light of a wavelength of 300 to 1500 nm (excluding wavelengths which result in absorption of light by an additive element) is transmitted therethrough is 0.002 cm.sup.−1 or less. An object of an embodiment of the present invention is to provide a large and transparent polycrystalline YAG sintered body and its production method.