Laser ablation apparatus useful for hard tissue removal

摘要

A laser ablation apparatus including a laser source for generating laser beams in a wavelength range suitable for ablating hard dental tissue, and a scanning device including a beam deflecting element that deflects and scans the laser beams over a surface such that the laser beams impinge on the surface with controllable overlapping (e.g., without overlapping each other). The scanning device and the laser source may be disposed in a hand piece. The scanning device may be coupled to the laser source without an optical fiber or hollow waveguide.