Compositional and morphological imaging of CO2 laser irradiated human teeth by low vacuum SEM, confocal laser scanning microscopy and atomic force microscopy

Enamel and dentin of human teeth irradiated by CO2 laser were investigated by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), low vacuum scanning electron microscopy (WET-SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Optical tomographic imaging by CLSM, compositional imaging based on atomic number effect of reflected electrons by WET-SEM, high resolution observation of surface morphology by AFM were done for both the irradiated and non-irradiated area of the same specimen throughout. The crystals of about 50 mum length and the bright spots were observed by CLSM at the bottom of the cavity induced by laser irradiation. They turned out from the observation by WET-SEM as the acicular crystals with the cross section of an irregularly hexagonal shape situated parallel and perpendicular, respectively, to the inner surface of the cavity. The thickness of the thermally deteriorated zone of the cavity was about 25 mum. The crystals unidirectionally grown up to the size of several hundreds nm were also observed by AFM, while the apatite crystallites of 50-150 nm were recognized all over in non-irradiated area. All the results suggest that after instantaneous melting at the surface of teeth by CO2 laser shot the crystals of calcium phosphate were recrystalized and grown to a large size. The compositional imaging in addition to morphological observation was useful to obtain the information of the change in materials induced by laser irradiation. (C) 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.