Orthodontic Brackets
5 products
About orthodontic brackets
The slot in a bracket is what takes the archwire; one survey of 360 steel brackets worked on a declared slot size of 0.022 by 0.028 inches. Ceramic brackets were introduced in the late 1980s and are mostly made from high-purity alumina, in monocrystalline and polycrystalline forms. A monocrystalline bracket is produced by controlled solidification of molten alumina into a single crystal with no grain boundaries, which gives greater optical homogeneity and translucency. A polycrystalline bracket is sintered from many alumina grains, which creates crystal interfaces that scatter more light. A self-ligating bracket holds the archwire with a built-in clip or gate instead of a ligature, and comes in active and passive forms. A passive self-ligating bracket adds a fourth mobile wall that turns the slot into a tube and lets the wire move freely inside it, which lowers friction.
The part bonded to the tooth, described in one study as a precision medical device. A narrative review reports no observed variation in the duration of treatment by bracket type, whether metallic or ceramic, conventional or self-ligating.
Sources: Compliance with the ISO 27020:2019 norm of a sample of currently available preadjusted orthodontic bracket systems, 2021 (Prog Orthod) · Polat & Yilmaz 2026, Optical performance of monocrystalline and polycrystalline ceramic brackets (Biomater Investig Dent) · Arora et al. 2025, Self-Ligating Versus Conventional Brackets: A Narrative Review (Cureus) · Leite et al. 2014, Comparison of frictional resistance between self-ligating and conventional brackets tied with elastomeric and metal ligature (Dental Press J Orthod)