According to an article on ScienceDaily, a professor and student duo from the Clarkson University Center for Advanced Materials Processing have discovered a new method of protecting teeth from cavities by utilizing ultrafine polishing with silica nanoparticles.
Professor Igor Sokolov and graduate student Ravi M. Gaikwad adopted chemical mechanical planarization, polishing technology used in the semiconductor industry, to polish the surface of human teeth down to nanoscale roughness. Roughness left on the tooth after the polishing is just a few nanometers.
The researchers showed that teeth polished in this way become too “slippery” for the "bad" bacteria that is responsible for the destruction of dental enamel. As a result, the bacteria can be removed fairly easily before they cause damage to the enamel.
The study findings was published in the October issue of the Journal of Dental Research.
