So, what exactly is ceramic, you ask? Ceramic is a non-metallic material that is an alloy of almost any number of elements and other composite materials, held together in primarily ionic and covalent bonds. That’s obviously a pretty broad definition, and ceramics are a pretty broad category of materials, but the ceramics we’re talking about in watchmaking are much more limited. The ceramic seen most often in watchmaking (and in all the watches in this story) is zirconium oxide. It’s most often made by taking powders of zirconia, aluminum oxide (which is what sapphire is chemically, by the way) and other materials, placing them in a mold, and then sintering them until they harden into the desired shape. Other ceramics used in watchmaking include tungsten carbide and silicon nitride, but these are much less common. There are also non-crystalline ceramics, which are essentially high-tech glass materials. They’re most commonly seen on electric cook-tops and aren’t what we’re talking about here.
I love reading what watch blogs have to say about Apple’s Watch. Well written.