Laser holography in dentistry.

I he purpose of this article is to illustrate some of the dental applications of nondestructive laser imaging or holography. The attempted analysis of biologic forces related to dental structures has been well documented in the dental literature.l-‘* The development of laser holography may lead to a further advancement in these studies. A laser is a device that generates and amplifies coherent electromagnetic energy at optical frequencies; it is a source of coherent, extremely bright light of a single color.23 The term laser stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” It is the analog of the maser, the forerunner of the laser. Maser stands for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” The laser was a natural outgrowth of the maser in the early 1960’s and for many years was called an optical maser. One important application of the laser has been in the field of optical image storage and image reconstruction known as holography. The principle of holography was discovered by Gaborz4 in 1948. When the laser light source was applied to holography in 1963 by Leith and Upatnieks,25 the practical application of holography became possible for three-dimensional recording of objects.