The common type of borosilicate glass used for laboratory glassware has a very low thermal expansion thermal expansion coefficient (3.3 x 10⁻⁶/K),about one-third that of ordinary soda-lime glass. This reduces material stresses caused by temperature gradients which makes borosilicate a more suitable type of glass for certain applications (see below).Fused quartzware Fused quartzware is even better in this respect (having a fifteen times lower thermal expansion than soda-lime glass), however the difficulty of working with fused quartz makes quartzware much more expensive; borosilicate glass is a low-cost compromise. While more resistant to thermal shock thermal shock than other types of glass, borosilicate glass can still crack or shatter when subjected to rapid or uneven temperature variations. When broken, borosilicate glass tends to crack into large pieces rather than shattering (it will snap rather than splinter)