Temperature measurements
Sapphire thermocouple set consists of the outer one-side sealed protective tube and one or more inner capillaries used for insulation of branches of the thermocouple. Owing to the optical transparency and perfect non-porosity of single crystalline sapphire, the caps guarantee the high temperature resistivity and prevent diffusion of the ambient atmosphere to the thermocouple. The sapphire has also outstanding electro-isolation properties.
Thermocouple caps for different thermocouples are advantageously applicable in aggressive environment and high temperature up to 2000°C or pressures up to 3000 bar, in chemistry, oil refinery, glass industry, and different laboratories. The sapphire caps found their application in the environments where corundum ceramics tubes do not meet the material stability requirements. The sapphire cups allow temperature measurement in mazout combustion reactors and hydrogen production, in glass tanks, blast-furnace gases, in mineral acid environments, in meteorogical standardization, etc.
The sapphire caps successfully substitute the ceramics tubes that are not resistive against diffusion of metals. Some metals react with Pt thermocouple and cause its destruction, for example, in the lead glass production furnaces. Therefore durability of thermocouples protected by single crystalline sapphire tubes is much higher then in the case of standard ceramics tubes. Even protective tubes of small diameters are sufficiently strong and high temperature resistant. The sapphire caps for thermocouples are the economical choice in many applications.
Semiconductor Manufacturing - Material purity of 99,995 % Al2O3 guarantees no process contamination.
Corrosive conditions – concentrated or boiling mineral acids; reactive oxides at high temperatures, etc.
Glass and china industry – replacement of Pt-coated probes, temperature measurements under extreme conditions, colored glass.
Instrument manufacturing – microwave digestion, specialized high-temperature furnaces, laboratory testing equipment, etc.
Optical application – gas-discharge lamps for UV, lamps for automotive industry, etc.
Industrial heavy-duty reactors – ammonia synthesis, Claus process, residue gasification, petrochemistry, etc.
Energy production – desulphurization, NOx removal, moving-bed reactors, problems with flying ash attachments, etc.
Sapphire for optical use
High optical transmittance of single crystalline sapphire together with mechanical and temperature resistance predestine the use of this material in optical applications. Optical windows and light guides are used in different devices as photometers, spectrometers, etc. Sapphire windows are used as viewport windows on furnaces and reactors.
Sapphire as a light guide for intensive IR light transmission is available in a form of fibres, hollow fibres, as well as precise tips. Main usage of sapphire light guides is connection with medical Er:YAG laser at wavelength 2.94 µm. This wavelength absorbs intensively in water and OH group containing materials, causing their overheating. They are just several materials meeting high demands for surgery or dentistry application as biological inertness, autoclavability, as well as high transmission and mechanical stability.
Sapphire for mechanical use
Single crystalline sapphire has been successfully used in many technical applications due to its mechanical and electrical properties. Different pistons, windows, insulators, and other parts that are about to be protected against scratching and mechanical stress can be advantageously and economically made of sapphire.
Pump pistons
Various mechanical parts that must be resistant to scratching and mechanical stress can be advantageously and economically made from sapphire. Low coefficient of friction towards steel and hardness Mohs 9 predestines sapphire to be used a perfect material for manufacturing of various pump pistons.
Process gas Injector
High-speed nozzles for gas mixtures containing abrasive or corrosive components are manufactured of sapphire due to its mechanical strength, corrosion and temperature resistance and hardness just below diamond.
Hard particles injector
Due to its hardness, sapphite tubes are perfectly suitable as hard particle injector, used for example in sand-blasting.
Heat-transfer or cryogenic applications
Sapphire features extreme thermal conductivity, especially at sub zero temperatures (graph attached). Sapphire is thus used with an advantage as an inert construction material in various cryogenic aplications. SapphiT is delivered in form of tubes, rods or plates. Thermal conductivity of sapphire is very high even at normal or elevated temperatures. Sapphire thermal conducitityis as high as 40 W/m.K at 25 °C , and it does not find any real match in between other crystal materials or ceramics. Thermal conductivity remains high even at temperatures over 1000 °C due to its transparency in a broad range of light wavelengths. Such property predestines sapphire to applications be used in various applications requiring heat transfer by conduction or radiation. SapphiT can be be in any shape in diameter up to 40mm, and even CNC machined to complex 3D shapes.
Vacuum Sapphire Tube Furnaces
Sapphire’s strength, temperature stability, purity and 100% gas-tightness as a single crystal guarantees that this material can be used as an inert construction material to insulate furnace heated zones at temperatures as high as 1800 °C. Sapphire tube furnaces can be designed as an ideal cost-effective solution for reaching high vacuum at these temperatures, or to perform annealing in inert or even reducing atmospheres containing hydrogen. Flexibility and contamination-free operation are yet further advantages of this solution. Sapphire reacts with only a few compounds, being well inert even at extreme temperatures. Its composition (99,995 % Al2O3) means that it finds applications even in semiconductor manufacture. Most importantly, sapphire tubes can be easily taken out and if necessary, easily cleaned with strong oxidising solutions or, for example, with boiling mineral acids like aqua regia or hydrofluoric acid. Several sapphire tubes can be employed and exchanged where flexible clean annealing of various components is required. As such, this solution is also ideal for small laboratory set-ups. Sapphire tubes are offered in several standard diameters for these applications: OD40/ID37mm, OD30/ID27 and OD25.4/ID22mm. Sapphire tube manipulation should be limited to minimum once it is mounted into the furnace. Samples can be easily manipulated using sample trays of corresponding diameters which can be easily moved along the tube.
Sapphire protective tubes for heating elements
The semiconductor industry requires extreme process purity. Sapphire can effectively encapsulate any metal heating element in such a way that no contamination occurs, as well as having the heating wire covered with protective atmosphere. Sapphire vapour tension is very low but the material’s strength and gas impermeability are very high even at temperatures approaching 2000 oC. Tungsten is used for heating elements to advantage. The heating element can be in the shape of a single wire closed within a sapphire tube, or in the form of a metal spiral in between two sapphire tubes, effectively creating a tube furnace. SapphiT features two other extraordinary characteristics which exceed the already excellent properties of sapphire itself: i) very high purity with composition consisting of more than 99,995 % Al2O3, and ii) excellent temperature stability due to a proprietary tempering procedure.
NMR tubes and other laboratory equipment
High Pressure NMR spectroscopy
High pressure NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy (0,1-5 kbar) is used to obtain information about the structure and dynamics of proteins. SapphiT strength allows such design of the NMR cell that extremely good ratio is reached between wall thickness and sample volume. The most frequent sapphire application is in xenon NMR. Xenon nuclide 129Xe has a spin of 1/2 and 131Xe is quadrupolar with a spin of 3/2. NMR characteristics of these nuclei provide a unique opportunity for probing their environment. Xenon interacts with various condensed phases including proteins, liquids, biological membranes and other samples. Although xenon is chemically inert, it does also interact with living systems without strong effect on their function. 
Sapphire tubes are delivered with two standard diameters – OD4,92+/-0,05mm (ID3,4+/-0,1mm) and OD9,92+/-0,05mm (ID8,0+/-0,1mm). Tubes are typically made 178mm long, or shorter. If required. The tubes are perfectly straight and tested in etalon to fit into 5(10)mm tube. The tubes can be tested at 500 bar pressure. Sapphire strength also allows manufacturing of holder tubes for very high pressures up to 5000 bar. Such tube is typically 80-150 mm long, with OD 5 mm and ID below 2 mm. The tube is designed with a holding sleeve to connect to a manifold attachment made of non-magnetic material. Sapphire is connected to metal using high-strength epoxy glue, resistant to 150 °C.
Sapphire crucibles for chemical analysis, TGA and coating/sputtering
Sapphire crucibles offer similar advantage to corundum crucibles as tubes to ceramics. Sapphire crucibles are perfectly chemically inert, well transporting heat and extremely pure guarantying cleanness of the process. Crytur sapphire is delivered in Al2O3 purity higher than 99,995%, thus guarantee no process contaminations. Sapphire is not porous single-crystal, thus it can be used in applications requiring absolute water absence. The crucibles can be made of any diameter between 1 and 40 mm. 
Sapphire crucibles can be easily cleaned with strong oxidising agent (chromsulphuric acid, for example), or with hot strong mineral acids (aqua regia or HF, for example). Sapphire resists hot mineral acids, even to HF, as well as any other corrosive components at temperatures of several hundreds °C. Sapphire only reacts with very strong bases at temperatures over 1000 °C (borax or alkali metall hydroxides), HF or F2 at temperatures higher than 500 °C or carbon at temperatures over 1500 °C.
Sapphire capillaries for material analysis
Sapphire capillaries can be made as thin as a tenth of millimeter, but still contain high pressures at high temperatures. Sapphire capillaries resist chemical compounds, pressures or temperatures unimaginable for standard quartz tubes. Sapphire tubes OD1,0/ID0,6mm are specifically designed to fit into high temperature laboratory furnaces designed to this diameter. Capillaries OD1,57/ID1,0 can be connected to the PEEK HPLC set-up and used for example in studies under water supercritical conditions. Sapphire finds a frequent use in structural analysis namely SAXS - small angle X-ray scattering, XRD - X-ray diffraction, EPR - electron paramagnetic spectroscopy and in many others.