Abstract
Non-invasive methods such as X-ray Fluorescence has been applied to study of the distinct pathologies and contamination levels analysis in various biological tissues among them nails, hair, and tooth. On the other hand, several works have demonstrated that the laser could be induced chemical and morphological alterations on the enamel surface occupying an important role as co-adjuvant in the caries disease prevention. Here, we have combined X-ray fluorescence using Fundamental Parameters method aiming to evaluate the variation in the chemical contend. The Ca and P concentrations as well as the Ca/P ratio were estimated in sound human and bovine enamel surface by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). We also evaluated the effect of the lactic and the acetic acids on the sound and irradiated bovine enamel surface by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) verifying the acid attack changes in the sound and irradiated bovine enamel. The laser parameters applied produced lower ablation depths, but sufficient to induce compositional changes. Our results have indicating an alteration statically significative to Ca/P ratio and also indicated an increase in the Ca/P ratio for the irradiated groups in comparison to sound groups. We also verified that the acid attack is more pronounced to sound bovine enamel surface in relation to irradiated to the bovine enamel surface indicating that the nanosecond laser can be used to reduce the demineralization process.