Current Trends in Smart Materials―A Review

Various fields of dentistry have been revolutionized by smart materials. The need for an ideal restorative material resulted in invention of newer generation of materials in dentistry called the smart materials. The smart materials possess the properties which may be altered in a controlled fashion by various stimuli like, stress, temperature, moisture, pH and electric or magneticfields. Some of the smart materials are biomimetic and mimicthe natural enamel or dentin. The current dental materials were worked on to improvise their properties in order to make them smarter. The use of smart materials holds a promising future in terms of improved efficiency and reliability in dentistry. There is a strong trend in material science to develop and would potentially allow newer ground breaking dental therapies with drastically enhanced treatment outcomes.