SHORT-WAVE INFRARED SUPER-CONTINUUM LASERS FOR EARLY DETECTION OF DENTAL CARIES

摘要

A system and method for using near-infrared or short-wave infrared (SWIR) sources such as lamps, thermal sources, LED's, laser diodes, super-luminescent laser diodes, and super-continuum light sources for early detection of dental caries measure transmission and/or reflectance. In the SWIR wavelength range, solid, intact teeth may have a low reflectance or high transmission with very few spectral features while a carious region exhibits more scattering, so the reflectance increases in amplitude. The spectral dependence of the transmitted or reflected light from the tooth may be used to detect and quantify the degree of caries. Instruments for applying SWIR light to one or more teeth may include a C-clamp design, a mouth guard design, or hand-held devices that may augment other dental tools. The measurement device may communicate with a smart phone or tablet, which may transmit a related signal to the cloud, where additional value-added services are performed.

主权项

1. A diagnostic system comprising:
a light source configured to generate an output optical beam, comprising:
one or more semiconductor sources configured to generate an input beam;one or more optical amplifiers configured to receive at least a portion of the input beam and to deliver an intermediate beam to an output end of the one or more optical amplifiers;one or more optical fibers configured to receive at least a portion of the intermediate beam and to deliver at least the portion of the intermediate beam to a distal end of the one or more optical fibers to form a first optical beam;a nonlinear element configured to receive at least a portion of the first optical beam and to broaden a spectrum associated with the at least a portion of the first optical beam to at least 10 nanometers through a nonlinear effect in the nonlinear element to form the output optical beam with an output beam broadened spectrum; andwherein at least a portion of the output beam broadened spectrum comprises a short-wave infrared wavelength between approximately 1400 nanometers and approximately 2500 nanometers, and wherein at least a portion of the one of more fibers is a fused silica fiber with a core diameter less than approximately 400 microns; an interface device configured to receive a received portion of the output optical beam and to deliver a delivered portion of the output optical beam to a sample comprising enamel and dentine, wherein the delivered portion of the output optical beam is configured to generate a spectroscopy output beam from the sample; and a receiver configured to receive at least a portion of the spectroscopy output beam having a bandwidth of at least 10 nanometers and to process the portion of the spectroscopy output beam to generate an output signal based on a wavelength dependence of the spectroscopy output beam over the bandwidth of at least 10 nanometers.