Abstract: The laser induced autofluorescence from carious regions of human teeth was studied using a krypton ion laser at 407 nm as an excitation source, a fiberoptical detection system combined with a polychromator and an optical multichannel analyzer. In addition, time-resolved and time-gated fluorescence measurements in the nanosecond range were carried out. It was found that carious regions contain different fluorophores which emit in the red spectral range. The emission spectra with maxima around 590 nm, 625 nm and 635 nm are typical for metalloporphyrins, copro- and protoporphyrin. During excitation the fluorescence was bleached. Non-carious regions showed a broad fluorescence band with a maximum in the short-wavelength spectral region with shorter fluorescence decay times than the carious regions. Therefore, caries can be detected by spectral analysis of the autofluorescence as well as by determination of the fluorescence decay times or by time-gated imaging. !11
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