Assa Shlomo, Meyer Steve, Fried Daniel
Inlight Corporation, San Diego, CA 92127.
Proc SPIE Int Soc Opt Eng. 2008;6843:684308. doi: 10.1117/12.778799.
Pulsed carbon dioxide lasers operating at the highly absorbed 9.3 and 9.6-μm wavelengths with pulse durations in the microsecond range are ideally suited for dental hard tissue modification and removal. The purpose of these studies was to demonstrate that a low cost 9.3-μm CO(2) laser system utilizing low-energy laser pulses (1-5 mJ /pulse) delivered at a high repetition rate (400-Hz) is feasible for removing dental hard tissues. The laser beam was focused to a small spot size to achieve ablative fluence and an integrated/programmable optical scanner was used to scan the laser beam over the desired area for tissue removal. Pulse durations of 35, 60 and 75-μs were employed and the enamel and dentin ablation rate and ablation efficiency were measured. Laser irradiated human and bovine samples were assessed for peripheral thermal and mechanical damage using polarized light microscopy. The heat accumulation during rapid scanning ablation with water-cooling at 400-Hz was monitored using micro-thermocouples. The laser was able to ablate both enamel and dentin without excessive peripheral thermal damage or heat accumulation. These preliminary studies suggest that a low-cost RF excited CO(2) laser used in conjunction with an integrated scanner has considerable potential for application to dental hard tissues.
工作在高吸收的9.3微米和9.6微米波长、脉冲持续时间在微秒范围内的脉冲二氧化碳激光器非常适合用于牙科硬组织的改性和去除。这些研究的目的是证明一种低成本的9.3微米二氧化碳激光系统，该系统利用以高重复频率（400赫兹）发射的低能量激光脉冲（1 - 5毫焦/脉冲）来去除牙科硬组织是可行的。激光束被聚焦到小光斑尺寸以实现消融通量，并且使用集成/可编程光学扫描仪在所需的组织去除区域上扫描激光束。采用了35、60和75微秒的脉冲持续时间，并测量了牙釉质和牙本质的消融速率及消融效率。使用偏光显微镜评估激光照射的人体和牛的样本的周边热损伤和机械损伤。使用微型热电偶监测在400赫兹水冷快速扫描消融过程中的热量积累。该激光能够消融牙釉质和牙本质，而不会产生过多的周边热损伤或热量积累。这些初步研究表明，与集成扫描仪结合使用的低成本射频激发二氧化碳激光器在牙科硬组织应用方面具有相当大的潜力。
