Materials for Biomedical Engineering. Mohamed N. Rahaman

Читать онлайн.
Название Materials for Biomedical Engineering
Автор произведения Mohamed N. Rahaman
Жанр Химия
Серия
Издательство Химия
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781119551096



Скачать книгу

alloys, for example, have values lower than ~5 × 10−6 °C−1. Polymers have the highest values, typically ~100 × 10−6 °C−1 and over.

      Optical properties of biomaterials are relevant to their use in applications such as contact lenses and intraoptical lenses, and dental restorations for repairing existing tooth structure, particularly in the anterior of the mouth. Important optical properties for biomaterials are their degree of transparency, refractive index, and color. Light is an electromagnetic wave and, consequently, electrostatic interactions with its electric field component determine the optical properties of a material.

      (4.49)equation

      where, Io is the intensity of the incident light beam and α is the absorption coefficient that can be obtained experimentally by plotting ln I versus x.

Schematic illustration of reflection, transmission, and absorption of a light beam incident on the surface of a material.

      Refraction (bending) of a light beam occurs when it passes from one medium into another, such as from air into glass. The refractive index n of a material is a measure of the extent to which an incident light beam is bent when it passes from a vacuum into the material. It is defined by

      (4.50)equation

      where, c is the velocity of light in a vacuum and v is the velocity of light in the material. As v must be smaller than c, n has values larger than 1. Several glasses, for example have a refractive index of ~1.5. Refraction as well as reflection of light occurs at the interface between two materials (or media) with different refractive index n1 and n2. Assuming that the light is incident normally on the surface, the reflectivity R, defined as the ratio of the intensity of the reflected light IR to the intensity of the incident light Io, is given by

      (4.51)equation

      Light that has entered a material can be reflected out due to scattering inside the material. If the amount of scattering is not too excessive, the material can appear translucent. Even the transmitted light can be scattered as it passes through the material, giving a transmitted beam that will spread out and appear blurred. Scattering occurs at the grain boundaries of polycrystalline materials, at fine pores within a material and at the interface between two phases of different refractive index. A dense homogeneous pore‐free glass lacks these microstructural features and, thus, suffers from little scattering.

      Small changes in composition can lead to large changes in the color of a material as, for example, the formation of glasses with a variety of colors by the addition of less than ~1% by weight of a transition metal oxide to a composition that would normally form a transparent glass. Changes in the electronic energy levels of the transition metal ions give rise to selective absorption of light at certain frequency ranges in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and, thus, to different colors.

      Lithium disilicate glass‐ceramics have become one of the most commonly used materials for dental restorations such as crowns and bridges (Chapter 7). The microstructure of these glass‐ceramics consists of fine lithium disilicate crystals within a glass matrix (Figure d). In addition to an attractive combination of mechanical properties, thermal conductivity, and chemical stability in the oral environment, lithium disilicate glass‐ceramic compositions have been designed to provide desirable optical properties such as color and fluorescence to match those of the existing tooth structure. This is achieved by adding small quantities of various transition metal oxides to the glass composition during its manufacturing process. In this way, the refractive index of the glass phase is made approximately equal to that of the crystals to reduce scattering of light at the enormous number of interfaces between the fine crystals and the glass matrix. A few of these metal ions and, if required, the use of additional metal ions, provide an additional benefit of esthetic appearance. They lead to the production of a wide range of desirable colors and fluorescence to match the existing tooth structure.

      In this chapter, we discussed how a three‐dimensional material responds to an applied physical stimulus such as a mechanical stress, an electric field, a magnetic field or an electromagnetic field (light). Overall, the response