Phase changes of calcium phosphate ceramic biomaterials induced by Femtosecond lasers.

Tooth hypersensitivity is an acute oral condition, both in children and the ageing population worldwide and it is the result of continual erosion and loss of tooth enamel. As the disease has significant impact on the quality of life of the patients, there is an urgent need to provide a robust solution for restoring lost enamel, a problem that remains intractable for clinical dentistry. In this work a novel treatment technique for enamel restoration is investigated. Our research promotes the development of an acid resistant calcium phosphate based biomaterial which is applied on a tooth’s surface and is bonded with the underlying natural enamel/dentine by irradiation with ultra-fast pulsed lasers at near IR wavelength [1]. The use of femtosecond lasers is crucial because with these heat accumulation is not a major challenge, unlike irradiation by conventional continuous wave lasers, and thus the proposed technique can be applied in situ.