Adaptation-following the example of nature in order to create the natural look

The most important task in dental technology is the restoration of the natural aesthetics of the teeth.

But  with  the materials that have been available up now, it has only been possible to produce artificial

teeth with visual characteristics  that did not allow for adaptation to different lighting conditions.

Over millions of years the evolution of living structures has resulted in one thing that is fundamental 

to survival: the ability to adapt to changing surroundings.

The appearance of natural teeth is determined by the dynamic interaction of fluorescence and opalescence. The source of this dynamic is the constantly changing light which influences the lustre

and colour of the natural tooth substances, thereby giving them their vital, natural look. At the same time, naturalness is always a perception and not a narrowly-defined circumscribed prescription. When the light and the position of the observer change, what the observer sees changes too, and this gives a natural look that contrasts with a fixed representation.

Opalescence, fluorescence, transparency and brightness - these four optical characteristics are dependent on the structural configuration of the tooth, each influences the other and they can vary

greatly within the tooth over minute distances.

Finally, fine inhomogeneities in the enamel and dentine can also change the path of the light.

The natural dental enamel acts as a spectral filter, and it is this that causes the opalescent effect.

Short-wave light is predominantly reflected, whilst long-wave light is transmitted. Consequently the enamel glow bluish white in reflected light but amber in transmtted light. The brightness of the tooth is essentially determined by its natural fluorescence. As the dentine fluoresces more strongly than the dental enamel, the tooth seems to be illuminated from within. The energy for the fluorescence

comes from the short-wave UV content of the daylight, which is transformed into visible light.

Color Adaptive Matrix

The discovery of the aesthetic code that accounts for the ability of a natural tooth to adapt in this way requried more than just the identification of all its major and individual components. In order to analyse the complex processes right down to the way in which they interact, all the components were systematically recorded in a matrix which presents all the individual measurements of the complex situation in tabular form.

Using this method, working together with Paul A. Fiechter, a master dental technician, Heraeus Kulzer succeeded in determining the connections between chroma, brightness, transparency, fluorescence and opalescence and thus in unlocking the aesthetic code of our teeth.

Having understood the confusing play of light within the tooth, we discovered that this aesthetic code actually has a very simple structure.