Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy of Healthy and Carious Dental Tissues

Diagnosis in dentistry is traditionally obtained by clinical examination, exploring tactile method associated with X-rays imaging [1]. The establishment of sophisticated optical techniques, as nonlinear microscopy and optical coherence tomography [2], has opened a new perspective for clinical diagnostic. Recently, terahertz (THz) radiation has been explored on the evaluation of dental tissue [3, 4]. Distinct refractive index and absorption coefficient values in the THz domain have been reported. Therefore, a more extensive characterization of dental tissue becomes important for the clinical use of THz radiation in dental diagnosis. The aim of the present study is to analyze healthy and carious permanent human teeth samples using Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy (THz-TDS) system in transmission mode.