Optical polarimetric detection for dental hard tissue diseases characterization

Dental enamel constitutes the outer layer of a crown of teeth and grows nearly parallel. This unique nanostructure makes enamel possess birefringence properties. Currently, there is still no appropriate clinical solution to examine dental hard tissue diseases. Therefore, we developed an optical polarization imaging system for diagnosing dental calculus, caries, and cracked tooth syndrome. By obtaining Stokes signals reflected from samples, Mueller images were constructed and analyzed using Lu-Chipman decomposition. The results showed that diattenuation and linear retardance images can distinguish abnormal tissues. Our result also aligns with previous studies assessed by other methods. Polarimetric imaging is promising for real-time diagnosing.