Long-Wave Infrared Thermophotonic Imaging of Demineralization in Dental Hard Tissue

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• 作者：A. Ojaghi ; A. Parkhimchyk ; N. Tabatabaei
• 刊名：International Journal of Thermophysics
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：August 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：37
• 期：8
• 全文大小：1,749 KB
• 刊物类别：Physics and Astronomy
• 刊物主题：Physics
  Condensed Matter
  Mechanics
  Industrial Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
  Physical Chemistry
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1572-9567
• 卷排序：37

文摘

Dental caries remains the most prevalent chronic disease in both children and adults worldwide. To address this prevalence through disease prevention and management, dentists need tools capable of detecting caries at early stages of formation. Looking into the physics of light propagation in teeth, this study presents a clinically and commercially viable platform technology for thermophotonic detection of early dental caries using an inexpensive long-wavelength infrared (LWIR; 8 \(\upmu \)m to 14 \(\upmu \)m) camera. The developed system incorporates intensity-modulated light to generate a thermal-wave field inside enamel and uses the subsequent infrared emission of the thermal-wave field to detect early caries. It was found that the greater light absorption at caries sites shifts the thermal-wave field centroid, providing contrast between early caries and intact enamel. Use of LWIR detection band in dental samples is novel and beneficial over the conventional mid-wavelength infrared band (3 \(\upmu \)m to 5 \(\upmu \)m) as it suppresses the masking effect of the instantaneous radiative emission from subsurface features due to the minimal transmittance of enamel in the LWIR band. The efficacy of the LWIR system is verified though experiments carried out on nonbiological test samples as well as on teeth with natural and artificially induced caries. The results suggest that the developed LWIR technology is an affordable early dental caries detection system suitable for commercialization/translation to Dentistry.KeywordsControlled demineralizationEarly dental cariesLock-in thermographyLong-wavelength infraredThermophotonic lock-in imaging