Experimental studies of the possibilities of diagnosing caries in the solid tissues of a tooth by means of terahertz radiation

Spectroscopic and tomographic studies on the solid tissues of a human tooth have been carried out in the terahertz (THz) frequency range. It is experimentally shown that, in samples of dental tissue damaged by caries, the absorption lines of water in the THz region have higher intensity by comparison with the intensity of healthy tissue. The radiation intensity in the THz frequency range reflected from samples of human dental enamel damaged by caries in this case is smaller by a factor of 2.2 and from samples of dentine is smaller by a factor of 4.5 by comparison with samples of healthy tissue.