Abstract
Removal of bulk dental hard tissue is carried out conventionally using burrs and turbine handpieces. This paper reports on the use of excimer laser radiation in the production of tunnel preparations to access deep caries. Using energy densities which were calculated to produce a clinically acceptable rate of tissue removal, extracted human teeth were irradiated. Both enamel and dentine were subjected to numbers of pulses ranging from 500 to 2500 with an energy per pulse of 15 J cm−2. The cross-section and depth of the lesions produced were measured using the Reflex microscope. The results showed that the ablation for dentine appears to be relatively constant while there is a gradual reduction in ablation rate in enamel as the depth increases. This may be attributable to the interaction between the plume of debris and the laser beam.
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Patel, B.C.M., Moss, J. & Pearson, G.J. Excimer laser (248 nm) drilling of tooth tissue: Preliminary investigation. Laser Med Sci 9, 243–248 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02593886
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02593886