Terahertz probing of low temperature degradation in zirconia bio‐ceramics

Abstract

ZrO2-based ceramics are widely used in biomedical applications due to its color, biocompatibility, and excellent mechanical properties. However, low-temperature degradation (LTD) introduces a potential risk for long-term reliability of these materials. The development of innovative nondestructive techniques, which can explore LTD in zirconia-derived compounds, is strongly required. Yttria stabilized zirconia, 3Y-TZP, is one of the well-developed ZrO2-based ceramics with improved resistance to LTD for dental crown and implant applications. Here, 3Y-TZP ceramic powders were pressed and sintered to study the LTD phenomenon by phase transition behavior. The LTD-driven tetragonal-to-monoclinic phase transition was confirmed by XRD. XPS analysis demonstrated that induced LTD reduced the oxygen vacancies which supports these findings. It is proved that after the degradation, the 3Y-TZP ceramics show the decreased dielectric permittivity at terahertz frequencies due to the crystallographic phase transformation. Terahertz nondestructive probe is a promising method to investigate LTD in zirconia ceramics.