Final answer:
Addition vinyl silicones are dimensionally stable materials used in dentistry for making dental impressions. Their unique silicon-oxygen backbone and organic side groups ensure thermal stability, flexibility, and durability, which are crucial for maintaining impression accuracy over time.
Step-by-step explanation:
Addition vinyl silicones, also known as vinyl-polysiloxane (VPS) impression materials, are widely used in medicine and dentistry for making accurate dental impressions due to their excellent physical properties. They are dimensionally stable for creating precise molds which are essential in areas such as prosthodontics for the fabrication of dental prosthetics like crowns and bridges. Silicones exhibit a variety of forms and consistencies, but these addition-cure silicones are specially designed to maintain their shape and size over time, even under variable environmental conditions.
These silicones possess a unique silicon-oxygen backbone which provides them with thermal stability and chemical inertness, making them suitable for high-temperature applications. Additionally, due to their organic side groups, they are flexible yet durable, ensuring that molds and impressions maintain their integrity from the time of setting until they are used to create dental castings or other applications. The organic side groups attached to the silicon atoms in the silicone polymers give them a diverse range of properties, leading to their widespread usage in areas beyond dentistry, like insulation in electrical applications, gaskets in automobiles, seals in various machines, and coatings for textiles.