A versatile, beautiful, high strength ceramic for veneers,
crowns and porcelain fillings.
What is IPS e.max?
Developed by Ivoclar
Vivadent Ltd, this amazing material is our first choice for a
dental ceramic. It is extremely natural and has the ability
to mimic teeth in a very lifelike way.
Why is it better than other ceramics?
The physical makeup of the material give it great strength
properties. Traditional weaker ceramics rely on a
sub-structure to provide strength, such as metal or zirconia.
E.max is strong enough to be used as a full thickness material and
this is where it has it's greatest strength. A groundbreaking
2009 study carried out
at New York University (NYU) showed that monolithic e.max (a
single solid layer) outperformed a layered zirconia crown in
fracture strength tests by many times.
By manufacturing this material in our office in it's monolithic
form, we control the process every step of the way.
Our IPS e.max guarantee
We are so confident in our ability to deliver such a successful
restoration that we'll give you a 1 year fracture warranty on
this material. If you are a patient of record and have maintained
routine annual care with us we'll charge you a rate of
10% of the new replacement cost per year, based on the number
of years of use. For example if you have had the restoration
for 5 years and it breaks, we'll charge you 50% of the replacement
cost to redo it.
Can I have IPS e.max in one appointment?
E.max is milled by us in a "blue" state. This is a softer
form of the material that allows us to use sophisticated CAD design
to create a virtual model of your cavity. We then add
custom colour and stains and fire it in a furnace at high
temperature to take it to it's ultimate strength. This
process adds about 90 minutes to the normal processing time of a
One Step (CEREC) Porcelain filling. Many patients prefer
to schedule two appointments.
How much experience do we have using IPS e.max?
Dr Shepperson has been a CAD user since 2003 and has worked with
IPS e.max and it's precursor Empress 2 for over 10 years.
In addition she teaches other dentists how to use the material,
discussing the science of the material, the design and milling
techniques and how to cement and bond it to teeth.
She is a worldwide voice for IPS e.max.
