ABLATION OF HUMAN DENTAL ENAMEL USING THE Cu-HBr LASER: A PILOT-STUDY

Autores

  • W. Miyakawa
  • A. J. Damião
  • E. G. C. Salgado
  • R. Riva
  • D. M. Zezell

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17563/rbav.v27i1.387

Resumo

Dental hard tissues are biological translucent ceramics and the interest in investigations on copper laser processing of these materials aims the wide potential of clinical applications of this laser. In this pilot-study, cavities were generated in human dental enamel without photo-absorbers, using focused green line radiation from a Cu-HBr laser (0.10±0.02 mm of spot), and decreasing exposure times, from 2.5 s to 0.1 s, in steps of 0.5 s, and from 0.45 s to 0.20 s, in steps of 0.05 s. Optical micrographs showed that the edges of the cavities were formed by melted and re-solidified dental enamel. Carbonization was outlining some edges and a few deep and long thermal cracks were observed radial to the cavities. The smallest mean exposure time (over sixteen experiments) for cavity generation was 0.30±0.03 s. Experimental evidences suggest that cavities were generated by a thermal process, due to the overlap of consecutive pulse energy deposition, in a short time interval, at the same spot of the sample.

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Publicado

2008-09-22

Edição

Seção

Sessão Especial: Instituto de Estudos Avançados (IEAv) – 25 Anos