Dentistry is a healing science that involves a huge number and variety of different materials. Restoring diseased teeth and supporting tissues can require the use of ceramics, metals, polymers, inorganic cements, and waxes. These materials are often ties used in various combinations. The one key factor that sets dental materials apart from most other uses of materials is that the clinician is often responsible for the formulation or manufacture of the final material. Most dental materials used to directly restore teeth are delivered in a state were the operating dentist controls the final setting reaction. When fillings are prefabricated in a laboratory, the cements or adhesives used for placing these restorations are still under the control of the operating dentist. For this reason, the physical properties of these materials can only be determined by laboratory simulations and may not completely reflect the properties achieved in actual use. This article describes these materials and their most common uses in clinical dentistry and in dental laboratories.

Dental materials are those materials used to provide therapy for the hard and soft oral tissues. This therapy includes the replacement of oral tissues lost through disease with inert materials, ie, metallic, ceramic, and organic, or with composites employing combinations of these three broad classes. The operative restorations and prostheses are made of amalgam, precious and nonprecious alloys, special cements, synthetic polymers, porcelain, and glass‐ceramics, all of which must withstand the rigors of the oral environment (see also Prosthetic and Biomedical Devices). The accessory materials needed in the fabrication procedures include synthetic polymers, synthetic and natural gums and waxes, hydrocolloids, gypsums, and refractories. These materials are used by ca 170,000 practicing dentists in the United States (1992) and more than 8,500 commercial U.S. dental laboratories employing ca 40,000–50,000 technicians.