Legend has it that glass was discovered by Phoenicians in the ashes of a fire on a sandy beach. Over the centuries, constant improvements in the choice of raw materials and manufacturing methods have given glass its primary characteristics of transparency and aesthetic color, making it essential to the manufacture of mirrors such as those in the Hall of Mirrors.
In the more recent past, a great deal of work has led to a more scientific understanding of the role of chemical constituents, the phenomena at play during melting and shaping, the structure of glass, and so on. This has led to a diversification of oxide glass compositions. We will present a few examples of the key stages in the history of these glasses, highlighting the close link between glass composition, forming process and application.
Today, building and automotive glazing provides solutions to the challenges of the environment, energy savings and comfort. These are more complex glass products for which functionalities are essentially provided by modifications to the glass surface, most often via multi-layer deposits, some of whose major applications we will explain. These glazings are tending to become " intelligent ", responding to external stimuli, as in the case of electrochromic glazings whose light transmission can be controlled electronically.
