Preparation and characterization of translucent glass ceramics

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to prepare and characterize translucent glass ceramics. The procedure was as follows, first a general background of the field is presented where the problems with current dental glass ceramics are presented, together with their history. The need for a stronger material is then clarified with the addition of new metals. Then the material is created and synthesized using the Sol-Gel process, and a thorough description of the process is presented along with the material used. During this process Manganese, Aluminum, and Magnesium is added to the glass ceramics, and their powder is later pressed using different methods, cold isostatic pressing (CIP) and hot isostatic pressing (HIP). The material is then sintered at different temperatures and a series of testing is then done to the doped glass ceramics. Mechanical testing, Nanoidentation, X-ray powder diffraction and density measurement show that the strongest material is the 0.5mol Manganese doped glass ceramic. The Manganese doped samples are only strong to a certain level of doping, if doped too much become weak. The Magnesium doped samples are also more porous than the other samples.