Polymer‐Derived Ceramics: 40 Years of Research and Innovation in Advanced Ceramics

The science and technological development of polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) are highly interdisciplinary, at the forefront of micro- and nanoscience and technology, with expertise provided by chemists, physicists, mineralogists, and materials scientists, and engineers. This chapter highlights scientific issues related to advanced PDCs research. These issues include general synthesis procedures to produce silicon-based pre-ceramic polymers; special microstructural features of PDCs; and unusual materials properties of PDCs, that are related to their unique nanosized microstructure that makes preceramic polymers of great and topical interest to researchers across a wide spectrum of disciplines. The chapter also deals with processing strategies to fabricate ceramic components from preceramic polymers, and discussion and presentation of several examples of possible real-life applications that take advantage of the special characteristics of pre-ceramic polymers.