hmabuchi

Today's featured image shows a low-magnification SEM view of the cone 8 reduction cooled sample we introduced two weeks ago.  If you compare today's image with the camera image from that post, you should be able to see that the [...]

In last week's post we introduced a new surface sample of a high-iron stoneware piece by Dan Murphy that was wood fired to cone 8 and reduction cooled.  Today's featured post shows a close-up image of this sample taken with a [...]

This week we shift our focus to a new surface sample, taken from a piece by Dan Murphy (Utah State University).  The clay is a high-iron stoneware body and the piece was wood-fired to cone 8 and reduction cooled.  Today's featured [...]

I had the pleasure to chat yesterday with Dr. Bill Carty from Alfred University about the story of the alumina/hematite hexagons that I learned from the Kusano et al. paper, which we've been exploring here in the microMondays blog posts. [...]

Today's featured image is a "small" image in that it is only 256x256 pixels, but it conveys a lot of information!  Last week we discussed how the EDS (Energy-Dispersive Spectroscopy) tool on an electron microscope can provide information on not [...]

Today's featured image (full version below) shows four versions of a close-up view of one of the hexagonal alumina crystals we've been investigating over the past few weeks in microMondays.  The upper-left version of the image is what you see [...]

This week's featured image is a Scanning Electron Micrograph of another surface area from the "hexagons" sample we have been profiling since our first microMondays blog post.  In this image we see a number of small crystals all laying flat on [...]

Our images this week show a zoomed-out view of the region of the ceramic sample containing the mullite "thicket" from last week.  I am often struck by the visual similarities between SEM images, which show very small patches of a fired ceramic [...]

This week we feature another SEM image of the etched, fired ceramic surface we've been examining the past few weeks.  This view looks into a small pit/cavity with an overgrowth of plate-like crystals jumbled together with needle-like (acicular) crystals.  The needles are most likely [...]

Last week we introduced the technique of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and posted an electron micrograph (SEM image) of a hexagonal alumina/hematite crystal formed in a "flashing" region on the surface of a ceramic vessel from an atmospheric firing.  We noted [...]

Today’s featured image was obtained using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).  It shows a patch of micro/nano-crystals found on the etched surface of the sample discussed in last week’s post.  For scale, the edge of the hexagonal platelet located just to the [...]

Have you ever wondered what causes “flashing” colors on bare clay in atmospheric (e.g. wood, salt or soda) firings?   […]