Effect of ion implantation on adhesion to zirconia material

This study was designed to investigate the effect of silicon (Si) ion implantation on the strength of zirconia bonding to resin cement.

Si ions were implanted in a sintered zirconia plate at an acceleration energy of 50 or 100 keV. The implantation dose was divided into four subgroups of 1 × 10¹³, 1 × 10¹⁴, 1 × 10¹⁵, or 1 × 10¹⁶ ions/cm². A total of nine groups were set up, including a control group. Stainless steel rods were bonded to the zirconia plates using resin cement and subjected to tensile bond strength testing. Other plates were subjected to surface roughness measurement and elemental analyses.

In the tensile bond strength test, some groups exhibited significantly higher values than the control group. The surface roughness measured using a confocal laser scanning microscope showed no significant differences in any group compared with the control group. The elemental analyses showed that X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was able to detect Si ions that could not be detected by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.

Despite the limitations of this study, it proved possible to implant Si ions into zirconia materials. It was also suggested that the strength of zirconia bonding to resin cement could be improved by irradiation.