Data for: Comparative Study of Nanosecond Laser Wavelengths for Improved LIBS Analysis of Soft Tissues [* Cross-Reference *]

Methods

Trains of pulses with picosecond duration from a Q-switched and mode-locked Nd:YAG laser and pulses with nanosecond duration from a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser, both operating at 15 Hz kept at the same average power, were focused in human sound molars for 30 sec. Drilled holes with different morphological characteristics were observed using several laser intensity regimes. Enamel surfaces were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and their morphological characteristics compared.

Results: An interesting contrast between the morphology of the enamel when treated with different level of laser power and pulse duration was observed. Picosecond pulses promote a better-defined material removal with a minimum intermediate region, whereas nanosecond pulses at the equivalent average power level cause a large intermediate modified region between ablated and normal tissue, as well as a complete superficial modification of the existent original structure.

Conclusion: Our results show an important correlation between the surface morphology and the pulse width of the lasers, suggesting advantages toward the use of ultrashort laser pulses in dentistry. ***This entry has been automatically imported via Datacite by LIST harvest scripts. Please refer to doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18376508 for the original and latest version of the dataset and data downloads***