Research Progress of Dental Restoration Materials and Their Applications

Oral health is becoming a worldwide concern because oral problems heavily affect the daily life and overall health of human. Dental restorative materials, as the material cornerstone for restoring oral functions, not only influence the oral treatment effects but also lay the foundation of oral treatment technique development. This leads to extensive attention and studies of dental restorative materials, from both scientific and engineering communities. Conventional restorative materials such as metals, ceramics, and resins have been clinically used for several centuries due to their good mechanical properties and biocompatibility. Recently, a new generation of biomimetic dental restoration materials has been synthesized by mimicking the formation process or structure of natural teeth to achieve matchable properties to natural teeth. However, there are still some issues that need to be addressed for these current materials, such as insufficient properties, esthetic characteristics, or scalable fabrication, which need to be summarized and discussed. Here, we introduced the characteristics of different kinds of dental restorative materials and focused on discussing the advantages, drawbacks, structure-performance relationship, and clinical application evaluation of these materials. Additionally, we provided an outlook for the development of dental restorative materials, serving as a guideline for future material design in dental restoration.