Anyone who has ever initiated   to chronicle the history of ceramic materials is certain to have discovered that the Chinese are credited with the development of porcelain as early as 1000AD.Many other people attempts to copy the crafts became unsuccessful to unravel the secrets of Chinese ceramic technology . Around 17th century after lot efforts ceramic technology became popular to the then world. Ceramics were tried in the dental field during 18th century. A French Apothecary by name Alexis Duchateau was edentulous (without teeth) and troubled by stained and odiferous ivory dentures, a condition probably quite common among the general population in those periods. Armed with his skill as an apothecary Duchateau attempted to make a pair of porcelain denture for himself. However, the initial effort was less successful. It was not until he teamed up with the Persian dentist Nicolas Dubois de Chemant that the two were able to construct complete dentures from a material they referred to as “mineral paste”. Satisfied with the fit of his new dentures, Duchateau returned to his apothecary shop. But de Chemant became intrigued by his experimentation and tried to reformulate the original “mineral paste”. De Chement eventually patented the formulation and in 1788 published a pamphlet on his work and very few of his cotemporaries regarded his action as a theft of Duchateau’s original invention. This was preceded by another invention by a French dentist Pierre Fauchard, the “father of modern Dentistry” who came out with baked enamel between 1728 and 1760.

   Individual porcelain teeth introduced to America around 1817. Later on, many inventors came out with ceramic teeth set which was popular in those days and became extinct by 1980s. The ceramic teeth were so hard and used with dentures found extreme loss of jawbone.

   In 1950s, literatures published revealing the successful pairing of porcelain-to-gold for fixed restorations. In 1962 M Weinstein, S Katz and AB Weinstein patented a method to fabricate the first ceramic crown.

   Introduction of automatic vacuum furnaces brought the ceramic technology to the doorstep of every dentist who wanted to fabricate the porcelain fused to metal (PFM) crowns and bridges in their own set up. Today the dentistry is so advanced that no one should die without teeth in his mouth, which should be the exact replica of gods own creation, the natural teeth.

PFM is popular even today, but the esthetics sense of the people demanded for natural looking teeth without metal sub structures. This was yet another revolutionary step in the filed of ceramics. Today quite number of countries manufactures variety of ceramic systems and the technology is available to very part of the world. The incorporation of metals in the mouth become a hurdles to CT scan and  MRI diagnostic aids. Today the Dentistry has taken over this challenge and the 21s century offer strong teeth without the trace of metal.

Different types of ceramics: There are mainly two types of ceramics

PFM ( Porcelain fused to Metal)

Metal free ceramics