A dental magnetic attachment has recently attracted vivid attentions from many prosthodontists for their clinical availabilities as a retainer for prostheses. Several types of dental magnetic attachments are commercially available at the moment. However none of them are clinically satisfactory. They must possess strong retention and complete corrosion resistance, since the available space is limited and the exposed magnet is easily corroded in the oral cavity.
A very small and powerful attachment has been developed by devising a sandwich typed construction and the elliptic cross-section with the aid of three dimensional FEM magnetic field analysis. The attachment is sealed up with a stainless steel cap laser-welded to the yoke. It has shown sufficient attractive force (560 gf) and stability in various fundamental tests.