Glass-ceramic from the LAS-System is a mechanically strong material and can sustain repeated and quick temperature changes, and its smooth glass-like surface is easy to clean, therefore it is often used as a cooktop surface.
The material has a very low heat conduction coefficient, which means that it stays cool outside the cooking area. It can be made nearly transparent (15–20% loss in a typical cooktop) for radiation in the infrared wavelengths. In the visible range glass-ceramics can be transparent, translucent or opaque and even colored by coloring agents.
However, glass-ceramic is not totally unbreakable.  Because it is still a brittle material as glass and ceramics are, it can be broken - in particular it is less robust than traditional cooktops made of steel or cast iron. There have been instances where users reported damage to their cooktops when the surface was struck with a hard or blunt object (such as a can falling from above or other heavy items).
, there are two major types of electrical stoves with cooktops made of glass-ceramic:
* A radiant heating stove uses coils or infrared halogen lamps as the heating elements. The surface of the glass-ceramic cooktop above the burner heats up, but the adjacent surface remains cool because of the low heat conduction coefficient of the material.
* An induction stove heats a metal pot's bottom directly through electromagnetic induction.
This technology is not entirely new, as glass-ceramic ranges were first introduced in the 1970s using Corningware tops instead of the more durable material used today.  These first generation smoothtops were problematic and could only be used with flat-bottomed cookware as the heating was primarily conductive rather than radiative.
Compared to conventional kitchen stoves, glass-ceramic cooktops are relatively simple to clean, due to their flat surface. However, glass-ceramic cooktops can be scratched very easily, so care must be taken not to slide the cooking pans over the surface. If food with a high sugar content (such as jam) spills, it should never be allowed to dry on the surface, otherwise damage will occur.
For best results and maximum heat transfer, all cookware should be flat-bottomed and matched to the same size as the burner zone.