Oral applications of ultra-short laser pulses: a new approach for gentle and painless treatment?

Abstract

In dental hard tissue ablation, ultra-short laser pulses have proven sufficiently their potential for material ablation with negligible collateral damage providing many advantages. The absence of microcracks and the possibility to avoid overheating of the pulp during dental cavity preparation may be among the most important issues, the latter opening up an avenue for potential painless treatment. Beside the evident short interaction time of laser radiation with the irradiated tissue, scanning of the ultra-short pulse trains turned out to be crucial for ablating cavities of required quality and shape. Additionally, such a technique allows to treat larger areas like the ones dentists are used to work with, i.e. ~ 1 mm O.In this paper, an overview of different scanning methods together with the algorithms used and an assessment of their applicability is presented. A variety of pulse durations from ~100 fs up to several ps has been used by numerous authors over the last approximately ten years. Having employed 330 fs pulses, we present the corresponding ablation thresholds for dental hard tissue (enamel, dentine; human and bovine), for a number of dental restoration materials, as well as for different types of bovine bone. Dental implants frequently have to be cleaned from plaque being deposited around their necks in areas where the gums have already retreated. A preliminary investigation is presented on the applicability of ultra-short pulses with mentioned duration for the gentle cleaning of titanium implants focusing on the preservation of the special plasma-sprayed biocompatible implant surface.