Towards dental ultrasound imaging: Space-resolved propagation properties of human teeth

Purpose: Dental ultrasound, even though highly desirable, still is an area on “the dark side of the moon”. High acoustic impedance and wave propagations velocity variations of dental material demand for sophisticated evaluation schemes, but the first conditio sine qua non are signal absorption rates not too high to receive scattered or transmitted signals well above the noise level. The paper describes experimental investigations analyzing the signal damping in a spectral range up to 30 MHz, spatially resolved over the different compartments (enamel, dentin etc.). Material and methods: Slices prepared from extra…