Effect of sintering parameters on phase evolution and strength of dental lithium silicate glass-ceramics.

Objective: With the establishment of CAD/CAM technology, competing lithium silicate based formulations have been introduced for clinical use, but little is known about their phase composition. Here we investigate a commercially available SiO-AlO-KO-LiO-PO-ZrO system to evaluate the crystal phase evolution during the second heat treatment by changing the main crystallization parameters.

Methods: With a focus on the final stage of crystallization, we characterized the dimensional changes in the crystallographic structure of the residual LiSiO and the lithium orthophosphate (LiPO) phases with variations in crystallization parameters, i.