these applications is principally based on a flawed but widely held view that the ductility profile of low modulus polymers is better suited for use in conjunction with ceramics specifically from a material science perspective ceramic materials possess a number of very attractive features they have high stiffness and hardness high usage temperatures and excellent resistance to oxidation and variety of chemical agents experienced in everyday usage they do however suffer from a very serious drawback of limited ductility in general all ceramic materials suffer from brittleness and this severely limits their ultimate strengths and thus their applicability in mechanically demanding applications in contrast low modulus polymers in general tend to have the opposite set of material properties they have very low stiffness and hardness values but they do in comparison to ceramic materials have excellent ductility properties as a result traditionally low modulus polymers were used in conjunction with ceramics in an attempt to mitigate some of their brittleness issues the ultimate goal being to create a composite that would combine the very high hardness of ceramics with the improved ductility of the low modulus polymeric materials thereby possessing the best properties of both material classes naturally high modulus polymers were not utilized in these systems the conventional viewpoint was that the hardness of these materials although somewhat higher than the low modulus polymers was still multiple orders of.