Characterization of light-cured, dental-resin-based biocomposites

The dependence of the depth of cure (DOC) and degree of conversion (DC) on the depth of experimental and commercial materials were determined according to ISO 4049 procedure and with the use of Raman spectroscopy, respectively. Moreover, an attempt was made to find the correlation between the DOC and DC and the depth of the material. The hypothesis was that curing time recommended by the manufacturers is appropriate for curing both commercial and experimental materials to achieve comparable values of the examined properties. The impact of the filler characteristic was clearly observed. The longer curing time provides a deeper curing (DOC values) and higher reaction rate (DC); however, the dependence between the DC values and DOC values was not visible. Instead, a logarithmic trend in the relation of the DOC and curing time was clearly observed. The results of this study suggest that the experimental materials give some hope for potential clinical applications and should be further investigated. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.