Description:
Current State of the Art
In dental bonded restoration technique, a methacrylate-based semi-viscous agent (liner) is placed on the prepared tooth structure. This liner is exposed to blue or violet light, which enables the liner to bond to the tooth. Following this, the missing tooth structure is filled with glass-filled composite, the top of which is exposed to blue/violet to polymerize.
The Problems of the Current Art
The light exposure of the composite from the top shrinks the top rapidly, which leads to stress development between the composite and bonding liner. This stress pulls the lower and side surface of the composite away from the liner. Over time, separation or gap forms. As a result, patients may experience pain upon biting on the top surface before the composite falls off.
Advantages of Our invention
The researchers at Augusta University invented a novel method to eliminate the stress and gap associated with traditional dental restoration. The novel method incorporates fluorescent nanoparticles, which contain rare earth elements, into the dental bonding liner. Both of the novel liner and the composite are placed on the prepared tooth structure before light exposure.
Instead of blue/violet light, the novel method uses the near-infrared light to strike the nanoparticles in the liner to emit blue and violet light, which polymerizes the peripheral of the restorative composite that closes to the liner. As a result, the polymerization of the remaining composite forms stresses that toward the liner instead of away from the liner, thereby reducing the gap and separation.
ARUI # 2018-017
IP status: US Non-Provisional 16/228,014