Applications of confocal laser scanning microscopy to dental bonding.

1998

The introduction of confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) has provided a valuable new technique for the visualization of bonding structures such as a hybrid layer in dentin (Watson, 1989, 1991), In the case of seven commercially-available dentin bonding systems, it could be demonstrated that the CLSM renders considerably more detailed information than the SEM because of its nondestructive nature and because of the possibility of a distinction between components of bonding agents. With most of the bonding systems, measurements of the thickness of the hybrid layer could be carried out when the primer component was labeled with rhodamine B. It was found that this thickness is significantl…