Researchers collaborate on stronger dental fillings

Researchers from King’s College London, the University of Alberta and colleagues from Canada and Norway are working together to find a stronger alternative to the current photo-activated resin-based composite dental fillings.

The researchers used synchrotron-based techniques to look inside the resin matrix to get an understanding of how its polymer network structure evolves, and how filler particles, which are introduced to the material for better mechanical performance, interact with it during setting and react with the dental filling materials. They used the wide field mid-infrared imaging technique at the Mid-IR beamline at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan. The Mid-IR beamline provides a state-of-the-art Fourier transform spectrometer and microscope for supply diffraction-limited spatial resolution to infrared spectroscopy experiments and is a great tool to perform spectroscopy and mapping experiments on microscopic regions of a sample. Absorption of light in the infrared region of the spectrum causes excitation in the vibrations of chemical bonds and rotations of molecules which can be measured and displayed as a spectrum that is unique to the molecule, to identify the material and to infer molecular and chemical properties.

The team ascertained that the fillers change the local reaction of the setting material, and this new information should assist researchers to optimise resin composites and make them more resistant to deterioration. Details of the international team’s findings were published in Nature Communications.