Upon completion of this course, the dental professional should be able to:
- Understand basic laser physics.
- Describe the concept of stimulated emission and what is an active medium.
- Differentiate between the concepts of energy versus power.
- Describe the difference between average power and peak power.
- Understand the three different laser emission modes and their role in peak power and thermal effects on target tissue.
- Understand the impact of pulse duration on peak power and thermal effects on target tissue.
- Define thermal relaxation.
- State the four types of tissue interaction.
- Define chromophore.
- Know the tissue temperatures that result in hyperthermia, coagulation, denaturation, vaporization, and carbonization.
- Describe the four major categories of dental lasers in use today.
- State the three safety practices required for all laser types.
- Understand the role of laser fluorescence in caries diagnosis and management.
- Know which types of lasers are able to be used on hard tissue.
- Understand the basic principles of hard tissue ablation and laser restorative techniques.
- Describe the various soft tissue surgical techniques.
- Define PIPS and its role in endodontics.
- State uses of low level laser therapy/biostimulation in dentistry.
