fused quartz

Fused quartz, also known as fused silica, is a type of quartz glass. It is made by fusing relatively pure quartz. This process creates premium grades of chemical and optical glass with desirable properties such as low thermal expansion, high-shape stability, elasticity, low solubility, and transparency to various types of light. These premium grades are more expensive but are used for precision instruments like balances, galvanometers, and gravimeters. Quartz is also a raw material for producing sodium silicate, hydrophobic coatings, organic silicates and silicones, silicon carbide, silicon metal, and for use as a flux and alloying agent in metallurgy.12