In an exciting new development, Photran has produced a range of curved sapphire fibre tips for dental laser delivery systems. These removable LASER GUIDETM tips simplify the design, improve the reliability of dental handpieces and can be sterilised.
The San Diego company makes sapphire optical fibres for dental and medical lasers. The single crystal sapphire fibres transmit the popular Er:YAG 2.94 µm wavelength, are very robust and completely non-toxic. Traditionally, the trunk delivery fibre transmits light from the laser to the handpiece where typically a 90 degrees bending mirror is used to direct the beam into a straight sapphire tip. Mirrors and alignment systems are expensive and may become misaligned. Photran’s curved sapphire tips can be butted directly against the trunk delivery fibre and thus re-direct the beam on to the LASER GUIDETM tip, thus replacing the mirror and other optics in the handpiece.
The usual design uses a sapphire trunk fibre of 425 µm diameter and a slightly larger diameter curved tip. Tips are available in diameters of 425 µm, 600 µm and 700 µm and can be made to re-direct the beam to most angles of choice, usually 50 to 80 degrees. Curved tip designs usually have a 10 - 15 mm radius of curvature and greatly reduce the weight, size and complexity of handpieces.
