Silicon nitride turborotor, an engineering ceramic component by NGK Ceramics Europe S.A., 1996.

The term ceramic, in its modern context, covers an extremely broad range of inorganic materials. They contain non-metallic and metallic elements and are produced by a wide variety of manufacturing techniques. They include pottery, refractories, cement and concrete, glasses and vitreous enamels, and engineering ceramics. Members of the last group are capable of very high strength and hardness, exceptional chemical stability and can be manufactured to very close dimensional tolerances. Their introduction as engineering components in recent years has been based upon considerable scientific effort and has rvolutionised engineering design practice.