Artificial tooth enamel (ATE) and its mechanical performance

With the rapid development of aerospace, national defense technology and biological hard tissue repair, engineers and scientists always aim at the design and manufacture of composites with higher stiffness, viscoelasticity, strength and toughness, but unfortunately these properties – stiffness/viscoelasticity and strength/toughness – are generally thought to be mutually counteracted. The mixture of two intrinsically complementary components such as stiff ceramic and soft polymer is the classic strategy to ameliorate the foregoing conflicting performances. However, engineering materials fabricated by the “mixture” way are just a trade-off, that is, one property is enhanced accompanying with weakening of the other one.