Functional ceramics are defined as ceramics which, besides showing structural properties, are designed for special applications requiring additional properties such as electric, magnetic or optical.

One field of research pursues obtaining transparent ceramics. For this, a non conventional technique such as SPS has been largely used in order to reduce the amount of porosity present in the materials. This has allowed us obtaining transparent ceramic materials of alumina, spinel and YAG.

More recently, the optical functionality has been pursued in the microwave regime. In this regard, ceramic/carbon nanofibers composites were developed that showed a tuneable negative capacitance. Currently, the interest is focused on the study of Mie resonances in low loss complex shape ceramics prepared by additive manufacturing.