Dental diagnosis and treatment using microwaves

In order to diagnose dental caries noninvasively, reflection coefficient of the dental caries is measured and compared to that of sound of the tooth. The reflection change in time domain shows that the caries can be detected by millimeter waves. This paper also presents microwave and millimeter wave heating for the lossy dental caries that can be used as a sterilization treatment. Temperature distribution heated by microwave power has revealed that dental caries is easy to be heated. Furthermore, the results of calculated SAR distribution using the finite difference time domain (FD-TD) method indicate the possibility of caries treatment by millimeter waves.