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Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Detection and Removal of Tooth-Colored Composite Resin Using the Fluorescence-Aided Identification Technique
Published on: July 27, 2022
Spectroscopic investigations of carious tooth decay
R K Thareja1, A K Sharma, Shobha Shukla
1Department of Physics and Centre for Laser Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, UP, India. thareja@iitk.ac.in
Abstract:
We report on the elemental composition of healthy and infected part of human tooth using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). We have used prominent constituent transitions in laser-excited tooth to diagnose the state of the tooth. A nanosecond laser pulse (355nm, 5ns) was used as an ablating pulse and the sodium (3s2S-3p2P) at 588.99 and (3s2S-3p2P) at 589.99nm, strontium (5s21S-1s5P) at 460.55nm, and calcium (3d3D-4f 3F0) at 452.55nm transitions for spectroscopic analysis. The spectroscopic observations in conjunction with discriminate analysis showed that calcium attached to the hydroxyapatite structure of the tooth was affected severely at the infected part of the tooth. The position-time plots generated from two-dimensional (2D) images conclusively showed a decrease in calcium concentration in the infected region of the irradiated tooth. Using the technique, we could distinguish between the healthy and carious parts of the tooth with significant accuracy.
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