Lasers in Dentistry: A Review

of aluminum oxide, that emitted a deep red-colored beam. After this invention, dental researchers started investigating the various potentials of lasers. In 1965, Stern and Sognnaes reported that a ruby laser could vaporize enamel and had thermal effects on the dental pulp. In 1970’s, researchers began to find the clinical oral soft tissue uses of medical CO2 and neodymiumdoped:yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) lasers. The first laser that had truly both hard and soft tissue application was the CO2 laser, invented by Patel in 1964,2 The Nd:YAG laser was also developed in 1964 by Geusic, a year after the invention of ruby laser, but it was largely overshadowed for a long time by the ruby and other lasers of the era until 1990, when the first pulsed Nd:YAG laser was released which is thought to have a better interaction with dental hard tissues.