The effect of phase contents on the properties of yttria stabilized zirconia dental materials fabricated by stereolithography-based additive manufacturing

The aim is to investigate the impact of phase contents on mechanical properties, translucency, and aging stability of additively manufactured yttria partially stabilized zirconia ceramics. For that purpose, we evaluated two PSZ materials. The first type was prepared utilizing commercially available 5 mol% yttria-stabilized zirconia(5Y-PSZ), while the second type, denoted as 3Y+8Y-PSZ ceramics, was fabricated by blending 3 mol% and 8 mol% yttria-stabilized zirconia powders. Compared to 5Y-PSZ (39.90 wt% tetragonal phases and c/a root 2v = 1.0141), 3Y+8Y-PSZ is characterized by a greater abundance of tetragonal phases (47.68 wt%), which display higher tetragonality (c/a root 2v = 1.0165) and lower yttrium oxide content (2.25mol%). As a result, the 3Y+8Y-PSZ demonstrates elevated strength (816.52 MPa) and toughness (4.32 MPa m(1/2)), accompanied by reduced translucency( CR:0.47) and it exhibits greater susceptibility to aging. The phase contents, yttrium oxide content, and lattice parameters in the tetragonal phase play a crucial role in determining the mechanical properties, translucency, and aging stability of PSZ ceramics.