Crowns, or caps, are used to restore teeth that have broken or cracked. Metal-free crowns allow us to restore your teeth without the ugly black line you may have seen next to the gum line on older crowns.
For decades, the standard in dentistry for crown and bridge restoration materials has been porcelain-fused-to-metal; the framework for the dental crown was produced in metal and then covered with a porcelain layer.
With the evolution of ceramic materials and their higher aesthetic qualities, dental patients now have options. Metal-free framework beneath the porcelain provides excellent aesthetic qualities to make the final restoration more natural-looking than ever.
Although mechanical properties of Metal-free crowns are similar to those of metal ceramic crowns, their advantages are far more numerous.
The interior of metal ceramic crowns is made of a metal alloy to which dental ceramic is fused in order to achieve an aesthetic effect.
The removal of dental substance (filing down of teeth) is far less extensive in the case of Metal-free crowns. For example, in order to make a metal ceramic crown it is necessary to remove 1.5 – 2.0 mm of dental substance, whereas in the case of Metal-free crowns, only 0.3 – 1.0 mm of dental substance needs to be removed.
In most cases, Metal-free crowns are made of zirconium or lithium-disilicate ceramic. In such a way the produced crown is made of a material similar to glass; it is light and transparent, and at the same time as resistant as natural teeth.