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LASER DENTISTRY
Light begets energy and energy begets vitality &
health. Though the energy and healing abilities of
Light were known to our ancestors, we the so called
scientifically inclined Homo sapiens understood the
relationship between mass and energy only after
Einstein gave us the famous equation E=mC2. As
health care providers of the modern millennium the
first and foremost thing that we need to understand is
that any disease in any tissue in the body is just an
absence of this vital energy!
Modern medicine has taught us to treat symptoms
instead of causes, often with extreme measures like
surgery. Modern dentistry is no exception to this rule.
The moment we hear the term LASERS, the first thing
that props up in our minds is a diode cutting a tissue
or an erbium cutting a cavity! In our quest for technical
excellence we seem to have forgotten the art of healing.
Somewhere during the course of this journey we seem
to have taken physiology for granted and have
started disregarding our own healing abilities.
A lesser known form of Laser therapy has the potential
to reverse this trend and lend a much needed healing
touch to modern medicine and dentistry by utilizing a
highly coherent yet non-thermal beam of Light. 1
Laser Photo Medicine or therapy
involves the
uses of non-thermal lasers on areas or tissues that have
been injured, damaged or diseased. These beneficial photobiomodulatory interactions significantly
reduce pain, increase blood circulation,
reduce swelling and
dramatically improve healing time
and outcomes.
ral sunlight to artificial fluorescent lamp, television light
etc. These are light forms which are produced without any secondary intervention. Another type of light
exists where an atom retains its extra energy until stimulated to emit the same in the form of photons!
Because of the aforementioned duality, Light exhibits
differing properties. Whilst travelling in the wave form,
the horizontal distance between two consecutive
peaks is called its’ wavelength. Different wavelengths
are perceived as different colors by the human eye.
What we see as white light is actually a mixture of
several wavelengths.
Whilst we consider LASER as a quintessentially pure
form of light energy, it can never occur naturally. They
have to be manmade and its’ invention is a direct
corollary to the quantum theory of light. 2
THE CONCEPTUAL BASE FOR LASERS
CAME 100 YEARS AGO!
1917 was the period in which Albert Einstein
unintentionally mentioned the existence of stimulated
emission along with spontaneous emission in his
quantum theory of light. When he was working on
photoelectric effect, he thought that a photon can
penetrate matter which will result in ejection of an
electron with an energy similar to that of the photon.
He worked over it till 1930 till he closed his eyes. It took
In terms of science (physics) Light
can be defined as small packets of
energy called photons which are
released by an atom or molecule. It
is a form of electromagnetic energy
which can behave both as a wave
and a particle at the same time.
In our day to day lives we see various forms of light varying from natuJuly-August-September 2019
Fig.1.Comparison of Photonic emission, showing spontaneous (Bohr’s model,
upper) and stimulated emission (Einstein’s model, lower)1,3
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