Abstract: Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystals (TZP) stabilized with 2mol% Y₂O₃(2Y-TZP) with superfine grains and
high perfomances were obtained by adding certain glassy additives into 2Y-TZP powders and sintered at lower temperatures. The sintering character,
microstructure and mechanical properties of the materials with various content of additives were investigated. It could not only lower sintering
temperatures, but also improve flexural strength and fracture toughness of the materials by the common effect of cryptomere strengthening and phase
transformation toughening. The influence of stabilizer content on mechanical properties of low temperature sintered Y-TZP was discussed. The results
showed that for 2Y-TZP materials, because of low stabilizer content and small critical transformation size, more tetragonal zirconia could change
into monoclinal, and had better effect of transformation toughening, hence higher fracture toughness was obtained.

Key words: Y-TZP, stabilizer, additives, low temperature sintering, critical transformation size