Optical fiber sensors and their application in monitoring stress build-up in dental resin cements

The field of optical fiber sensing is highly diverse and this diversity is perceived as a great advantage over more conventional sensors in that an optical sensor can be tailored to measure any of a myriad of physical parameters. In this paper we present a niche application for optical fiber sensors in the domain of biophotonics, namely the monitoring of stress build-up during the curing process of dental resin cements. We discuss the origin of this stress build-up and the problems it can cause when treating patients. Optical fiber sensors aim at excelling in two kind of applications: firstly to perform quality control on batch produced dental cements and measure their total material shrinkage, secondly to monitor the hardening of the cement during in-vivo measurements resulting in the dynamic measurement of the shrinkage and to control the stress in a facing based restoration. We therefore investigated two types of optical fiber sensors as alternatives to conventional measurement techniques; namely polarimetric optical fiber sensors and fiber Bragg gratings written in polarization maintaining fibers. After discussing the results obtained with both optical fiber sensors, we will conclude with a critical assessment of the suitability of the two proposed sensing configurations for multi-parameter stress monitoring.