Benefits in cost and reduced discomfort of new techniques of minimally invasive cavity treatment

The concept of minimally invasive dentistry is appealing to more and more dentists. Patients share this enthusiasm. Three basic principles underlie minimally invasive dentistry: prevention of dental caries, less intrusive treatment for early lesions, and conservation of tissue when deeper lesions are restored. Together, these principles improve patient well-being by prolonging the life of teeth and by reducing the need for uncomfortable and costly dental treatments

Electron degeneracy and intrinsic magnetic properties of epitaxial Nb:SrTiO3_3 thin-films controlled by defects

We report thermoelectric power experiments in e-doped thin films of SrTiO$_3$ (STO) which demonstrate that the electronic band degeneracy can be lifted through defect management during growth. We show that even small amounts of cationic vacancies, combined with epitaxial stress, produce a homogeneous tetragonal distortion of the films, resulting in a Kondo-like resistance upturn at low temperature, large anisotropic magnetoresistance, and non-linear Hall effect. Ab-initio calculations confirm a different occupation of each band depending on the degree of tetragonal distortion. The phenomenology reported in this paper for tetragonally distorted e-doped STO thin films, is similarto that observed in LaAlO$_3$/STO interfaces and magnetic STO quantum wells.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

The influence of pulse duration on the stress levels in ablation of ceramics: A finite element study

We present a finite element model to investigate the dynamic thermal and mechanical response of ceramic materials to pulsed infrared radiation. The model was applied to the specific problem of determining the influence of the pulse duration on the stress levels reached in human dental enamel irradiated by a CO2 laser at 10.6 mm with pulse durations between 0.1 and 100 ms and sub-ablative fluence. Our results indicate that short pulses with durations much larger than the characteristic acoustic relaxation time of the material can still cause high stress transients at the irradiated site, and indicate that pulse durations of the order of 10 ms may be more adequate both for enamel surface modification and for ablation than pulse durations up to 1 ms. The model presented here can easily be modified to investigate the dynamic response of ceramic materials to mid-infrared radiation and help determine optimal pulse durations for specific procedures.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) – Programa Operacional “Ciência , Tecnologia, Inovação” – POCTI/ESP/37944/2001 e SFRH/BD/4725/2001

Modelling of the human enamel laser ablation process at the mesoscopic scale

Comunidade Europeia (CE). Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER).A mesoscopic simulation of the process of human enamel laser ablation by Er:YAG and CO2 lasers is being developed using the finite element method, taking into account the complex structure and chemical composition of this material. A geometric model that allows studying in detail the temperature, stress and displacement distribution within a few enamel rods is presented. The heat generation that takes place inside the enamel at the centre of the laser spot, caused by a non-ablative laser pulse emitted by CO2 and Er:YAG lasers, was simulated. The sensitivity of our model to the estimated material parameters was studied. Temperature, displacement and stress distribution maps obtained for both lasers are presented. These preliminary results suggest that the temperature distribution across the enamel rods is different in the two situations considered; thermally induced stresses in the material are higher in the regions that are richer in hydroxyapatite (HA), and the higher displacements are observed in the regions that are rich in water. The rod tails inside enamel present higher stresses in the direction perpendicular to the surface of enamel than the ones that are created at the surface of our simulated structure. We conclude that the mesostructure plays a crucial role in the accurate modelling of dental laser ablation.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Programa Operacional “Ciência , Tecnologia, Inovação” -POCTI/ESP/37944/2001, SFRH/BD/4725/2001

Mechanical and thermal response of enamel to IR radiation - a finite element mesoscopic model

We present finite element models of human dental enamel that account for water-pores known to exist in this material, and use them to assess the influence of these pores on the temperature and stress profiles during and after single Er:YAG (2.9 µm) and CO2 (10.6 µm) laser pulses of duration 0.35 µs. Our results indicate that the temperature maximum is reached at the water-pores at the end of the laser pulse; this maximum seems to be independent of pore size for the CO2 laser but appears to be strongly dependent of pore size for the Er:YAG laser. The pressure reached at the water pore seems to be directly related to the temperature at the pore and it is significantly higher that the stress levels reached throughout the modelled structure, which indicates that water pores should play a significant role in the ablation mechanisms, even before water vaporization takes place. These results suggest that researchers conducting enamel ablation by Er:YAG lasers - or other lasers with wavelengths for which the absorption coefficients of the mineral and the water differ significantly - may want to select their samples and analyse their results taking into account factors that may alter the degree of mineralization of a tooth, such as age or type of tooth.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) – Programa Operacional “Ciência , Tecnologia, Inovação” – POCTI/ESP/37944/2001, SFRH/BD/4725/200.Comunidade Europeia (CE). Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER)

Modelling the influence of pore size on the response of materials to infrared lasers – an application to human enamel

We present an analytical model for a ceramic material (hydroxyapatite) containing nanometre-scale water pores, and use it to estimate the pressure at the pore as a function of temperature at the end of a single 0.35 µs laser pulse by Er:YAG (2.94 µm) and CO2 (10.6 µm) lasers. Our results suggest that the pressure at the pore is directly related to pore temperature, and that very high pressures can be generated simply by the thermal expansion of liquid water. Since the temperature reached at the pores at the end of the laser pulse is a strong function of pore size for Er:YAG lasers, but is independent of pore size for CO2 lasers, our present results provide a possible explanation for the fact that the enamel threshold ablation fluences are more variable for Er:YAG lasers than for CO2 lasers, and suggest that experimentalists should analyse their results accounting for factors (like age or type of tooth) that may change the pore size distribution in their samples.Comunidade Europeia (CE) - Fundo Comunitário Europeu (FEDER).Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)