Zirconia is most famous high-performance material among all oxide ceramics. Ceramic components made out of Zirconia generally consist of Zirconia as basic material added with some percentage of other oxides like Yttria (Y2O3) or Magnesia (MgO). Depending on doping material different material properties could be achieved because of influencing the Yttria’s microstructure. The „ceramic steel“ titled Zirconia is doped with Yttria forming an ultra-fine ductile structure with sub-micron grain formation leading to enormous bending strengths. Magnesia doped qualities are less strong also showing a coarser microstructure.

Zirconia is characterized through its tribological performance (friction and wear) in moving applications and furthermore:

• Excellent fracture toughness
• Very good wear resistance
• High corrosion stability
• Low thermal conductivity
• CTE in range of steel

All these properties characterize Zirconia (Yttria stab.) as a leading structure material for highest wear stress in several application fields, even medical technology.