Scientific Literature

The focus of our research is on optical properties of dental hard tissues and dental materials which can be roughly divided into two adjacent fields; Color Science and Biophotonics.

Color Science: 

Physical substances (matter) consist of discrete charge carriers called electrons and protons. Light is assumed to consist of small energy packages (photons) causing interaction with these charge carriers, exiting oscillating vibrations. Accelerated charges emit electromagnetic energy omnidirectionally in the shape of elementary waves (secondary radiation) and such excited charge carriers can either partially or completely convert the energy of an incident wave (a beam of light) into other forms of energy, for instance phonons, plasmons or magnons. This type of energy conversion is commonly referred to as absorption. The psychophysiological construction of color is related to the amount of reflected (scattered) and absorbed electromagnetic radiation by a medium.  

Biophtonics:

An incident electromagnetic wave travelling through a diffusely scattering medium like tissue (i.e. dentin and enamel) with a position-dependent permittivity (anisotropy) results in multiple scattering events. Many different theories have been put forward to describe such field variations including Maxwell's, the transport and the diffusion theory. Maxwell’s equations takes into account the microstructure of the medium under consideration but is due to the complexity of tissues impossible to solve accurately, mainly because of the lack of precise knowledge of the dielectric permittivity along the propagation vector. The Radiative Transport Equation (RTE) is an approximation of Maxwell's equation, achieved through simplification by ignoring certain phenomena related to wave propagation.

By solving RTE it is possible to simulate, compare and identify tissue samples by their optical properties.