Study on the Five dynasty sky-green glaze from Yaozhou kiln and its coloring mechanism

Abstract This work takes the Five dynasty sky-green glaze of Yaozhou kiln as the major study object. Based on the analysis of XRF, XRD, XPS and SEM/EDS, the chemical compositions, firing technique and microstructure of the sky-green glaze were investigated. A possible coloring mechanism was proposed to explain the variation of glaze appearance. The results indicated that the Five dynasty sky-green glaze had relatively high contents of CaO and K 2 O, which led to the better gloss and transparency than others. Besides that, the chemical coloring of Fe 2 O 3 and the scattering of phyical structures also affected the color saturation and opacity of glaze surface. The high Fe 2+ /Fe 3+ ratio and phase separation droplets of forming structural color by the amorphous photons and Rayleigh scattering contributed to increasing the blue tone of sky-green glaze. In addition, the residual crystals decreased the transparency of glaze surfaces.