From Pottery to Ceramic Sensors

Most Canadians are familiar with the black and bluish green pottery, called Blue Mountain Pottery. The Blue Mountain Pottery Company was founded in 1947, in Collingwood, Ontario. This pottery is made from clays mined in the Collingwood area.

In 1983 a new branch of the Blue Mountain Pottery Company developed. It was called B.M. Hi-Tech. They began to develop very specialized ceramics, for technological applications. In 1985 the company was sold to Sensor Technology Limited of Toronto.

Today this company produces infrared glasses, custom-designed systems, high-temperature process instrumentation, and piezoelectric ceramic sensors and devices. Piezoelectricity is the ability of a material to become electrically charged when mechanical stress is applied to it (and vice versa), and many of Sensor Technology's ceramic products rely on their piezoelectricity.

High-technology ceramics are playing an important role in the future of electronics, processing and manufacturing systems automation, and in the automotive, utility, and fabrication industries. Sensor Tech already caters to huge companies like Texas Instruments, Magnavox, and General Instruments.

These ceramic materials also have a reputation in aerospace technology. In March of 1992 the Canadian Space Agency launched its first microgravity rocket. Inside this rocket was a ceramic furnace designed and built by Sensor Technologies. The furnace tested preparation and properties of fluoride glass for fibre optic use in a zero-gravity environment. In October 1992 one of B.M. Hi-Tech's products was again launched into outer space, this time on the Space Shuttle Columbia.

What began as a pottery business has grown into an industrial corporation that is making its contributions on earth as well as in aerospace research.