OCT monitoring of diffusion of water and glycerol through tooth dentine in different geometry of wetting

摘要

In our previous work optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been proved to be a useful tool for monitoring of diffusion of chemical agents (water, glycerol) within human tooth dentine. Such diffusion studies are interesting for tooth therapy (diffusion of medicinal preparations) and cosmetics (chemical whitening agents). Here we compare different wetting schemes in which the sample is either merged in the liquid agent so that the probe beam is to pass through a layer of liquid, or subjected to wetting through a special window from the back side. In spite of certain difference revealed, the order of magnitude of the diffusion time constant and the permeability coefficient are shown to be the same in both cases.