Dental ceramics: the state of the science

This review covers the properties of dental ceramics. Castable systems, bioactive glass, PMF systems, CAD/CAM, and ceramic brackets in orthodontics are briefly discussed. Many of the advances made between 1960 and 1975 were directed toward the understanding, controlling, and developing of new ceramic processes. New and deeper understanding of the structure of non-crystalline solids, structural imperfections, sintering physics, and other physical phenomena related to the melting and solidification processes has brought ceramics from the near-total art form process of the mid-century to the status of a highly sophisticated science it enjoyed in the 1980's.