2007 Volume 18 Issue 1 Pages 35-41
In dental treatment with Nd: YAG laser beam, a quartz optical fiber is generally used to transmit the laser beam, which is irradiated to the hard and soft tissues for caries treatment and periodontal tissue excision. Recently, a diffused and circumferential laser beam, which is produced by using a processed optical fiber at the tip, is widely used for these treatments. The advantage of using a processed fiber is that an ordinary beam has difficulty in making incisions in oral soft tissue and removing some outer layers of the gingiva. In the previous study, a method of processing an optical fiber tip with TiO2 powder was proposed, and the performance of the processed optical fiber (TP fiber) for processing hard and soft tissues was investi gated.
The laser beam radiated from the tip of the TP fiber is partitioned into a straight beam, a sideways beam and heat generat ed by the absorption of the laser beam. In this paper, an experimental instrument to measure the energy partition radiated from the TP fiber is developed, and the relation between processing conditions and energy partition of the laser beam emitted from the tip of the TP fiber is investigated in detail. As a result, an effective tip of the TP fiber is obtained under suitable processing conditions and the laser beam radiated from the fiber tip is controllable. The laser beam radiated as a straight beam and a sideways beam at the TP fiber tip was measured respectively, and an appropriate TP fiber tip for each type of dental treatment was obtained.
