Microtopographic non-invasive inspection for determining roughness parameters of dental biomaterials

In this work we experimentally analyze the roughness parameters of two types of dental-resin composites and pre-sintered and sintered zirconia ceramics. We studied two shades of both composite types and two sintered zirconia ceramics: colored and uncolored. A surface treatment was applied to one specimen of each dental-resin. The samples were submitted to non-invasive inspection with the MICROTOP.06.MFC laser microtopographer to gather meaningful surface statistical parameters. For a comparison of the different biomaterials, the uncertainties associated to the surface parameters were also determined. Except for the composites with the surface treatment, the sample surfaces had approximately a normal distribution of heights.