Crystallization and fluorescence studies of lithium-disilicate glass-ceramics for dental restorations

The main goal of this project is to develop lithium disilicate glass-ceramics with different shades of color but similar degrees of fluorescence intensities. These materials find widespread applications in dental restorations and it is desired that the fluorescence properties of the glass-ceramics match the natural fluorescence of teeth. A brief review of background information is provided in Section 1. Section 2 describes the crystallization and fluorescence studies of cerium doped lithium disilcate glasses with varying amounts of transition metal oxides (up to 0.7wt%V2O5 and up to 0.3wt% of MnO2) and constant amount of cerium oxide (2wt% of Ce oxide). In Section 3 the fluorescence properties of cerium-terbium co-doped lithium disilicate glasses with constant wt% of terbium (0.25wt% and 0.5wt% of Tb4O7) and varying additions of Ce oxide (0-2 wt% CeO2) were studied. Section 4 outlines some of the future work in this area --Abstract, page iii