Research of the optical radiation interaction with human tooth tissues has started early after the first laser construction. Absorptivity of the particular tissue is dependent on the wavelength, thus CO₂, Er:YAG and Nd:YAG lasers were used in many experimental works all over the world. Near infrared radiation of the pulsed Nd:YAG laser was found to be suitable for dentine hypersensitivity treatment by sealing of the open tubules with melted and re-solidified dentin. Series of experiments were performed to find suitable process parameters in the laser laboratory equipped with the industrial pulsed Nd:YAG laser system. Tooth samples were prepared and classified into five groups according to their different degree of the surface grinding and polishing. Two types of antireflective agents, erythrosine and black ink, were applied on the samples surfaces. Coated samples and reference ones without any agents were treated with a set of increasing pulse energy values. Pulse frequency, pulse length, laser beam diameter on the sample surface and relative speed remained constant. Lines of the melted spots were displayed by confocal microscope; surface profiles were scanned by contact profilometer. Dimensions of the dentine melted spots were extracted from the measured data and their dependence on the laser pulse energy, degree of the surface grinding and type of antireflective agent were evaluated.

Date Published: 18 December 2012
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8697, 18th Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics, 86971C (18 December 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.2010260

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8697:
18th Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics
Jan Peřina Jr.; Libor Nozka; Miroslav Hrabovský; Dagmar Senderáková; Waclaw Urbańczyk; Ondrej Haderka; Libor Nožka, Editor(s)