Lithium disilicate (LS2) is a unique dental ceramic due to its great optical characteristics, especially translucency in combination with good mechanical properties, such as strength and fracture toughness. The translucency of LS2 is on par with other glass ceramics such as feldspar, whereas it is exceeding them in mechanical strength. There it is only rivaled by oxide ceramics, such as zirconia and alumina, which in turn do not satisfy aesthetic requirements. Therefor LS2 is favored for restorations especially in the anterior region.
Conventional processing of LS2 is either by hot-pressing of precrystallized blanks in the so-called lost wax technique or by milling of blocks or blanks. The former method is quite intricate, time and material consuming. Milling as a computer aided manufacturing method (CAM) is embedded in the digital workflow, where patient data is acquired by intraoral scanning and the model and restoration are designed by designated computer aided design (CAD) software. The milling process however is also material consuming, as it is a subtractive method, and furthermore it is limited in the freedom of design. Especially thin restorations, such as non-prep veneers with thicknesses much below 1 mm cannot be easily produced by milling. Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are promising approaches to overcome these limitations of the CAD-CAM production of LS2 restorations. Especially lithography based ceramic manufacturing is an AM technology with high resolution and precision. In this work we present initial results of LS2 restorations produced by additive manufacturing method Lithography-based Ceramic Manufacturing (LCM) on a CeraFab System S65 Medical machine, which show exceptional optical properties, comparable adhesion and biocompatibility to conventionally produced LS2 materials.