This book offers a thorough and accessible introduction to the physics and chemistry of glasses, covering both fundamental principles and practical applications. Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and professionals, it explores the structure, formation, and diverse properties of glasses, with a strong focus on real-world laboratory practices and challenges. Topics include fundamentals of the glassy state, glass formation theories, glass preparation, phase separation, thermal and mechanical behaviour, viscoelasticity, transport properties, optical characteristics, and advanced vibrational spectroscopic techniques such as FTIR and Raman. The book also focuses on various glass categories, including oxide, fluoride, tellurite, and chalcogenide systems, and highlights their relevance in cutting-edge technologies like fiber optics and laser applications. Distinctively, it incorporates real experimental data and practical guidance, making it a valuable resource for those seeking to bridge theoretical knowledge with experimental glass science and materials innovation.

Pantelis Bourazanis is a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation (IOSB)—Laser Technology Department in Germany. His primary research mainly focuses on the physical and chemical properties of fluoride glasses and the development of novel optical fibers based on technologically significant glass-forming systems for laser technology applications. Dr. Bourazanis holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry (with honors), an Msc in Biomedical Sciences, and a BSc in Physics from the University of Ioannina, Greece. His doctoral research was centered on the synthesis and characterization of mixed fluorophosphate and tellurite glass systems, exploring their structural, mechanical, and thermal properties using vibrational spectroscopies (Raman, FTIR), ultrasonic echography, and thermal analysis techniques. Notably, he was the first to successfully develop a stable binary TeO₂–V₂O₅ glass system across a broad composition range, and also synthesized the ternary TeO₂–V₂O₅–Tl₂O system with promising thermal characteristics. His work has been published in leading journals such as Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, Spectrochimica Acta Part A, Applied Physics A, and Chemical Physics. Following his PhD, Dr. Bourazanis joined the Soft Condensed Matter Physics Group at the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Ivo Buttinoni, where he specialized in rheology and investigated the viscoelastic properties of various monolayers. He has presented his findings at international conferences and is currently preparing three manuscripts for submission to high-impact rheology and glass science journals. In addition to his research, he has teaching experience in physics from the Heine-Heine University of Düsseldorf and the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece.