Dental treatment or examination apparatus

A dental treatment or examination apparatus, comprising:

• a white light interferometer (7) having a measurement beam branch (19), a reference beam branch (17), an emitter (31, 131, 231) for emitting measurement radiation toward a tooth to be treated or examined, a receiver (31, 131, 231) for receiving measurement radiation reflected by the tooth to be treated or examined, superposition equipment (21) for superposing reference radiation and reflected measurement radiation, and a detector (23) for detecting the superposed radiation and for generating an interferometric signal representing the superposed radiation;
• a dental treatment or examination instrument (1, 101, 201) having a distal end (5, 105, 205) in which the emitter (31, 131, 231) and the receiver (31, 131, 231) are arranged, the distal end (5, 105, 205) being designed to be brought close to the tooth of a patient to be treated or examined;
• a control unit (13) assigned to the white light interferometer (7) with a control program that causes the white light interferometer (7) to carry out depth scans of the tooth;
• an analysis device (9) connected to the detector (23) for receiving the interferometric signal, the analysis device (9) being operative to determine a distance of the pulp of the tooth to be treated or examined from a current surface of the tooth and to output a distance signal representing the distance;
• and
• a warning or stopping device (11) connected to the analysis device (9) for receiving the distance and being designed to emit a warning signal or stop the dental treatment or examination instrument (1, 101, 201) when the distance reaches or falls below a predetermined minimum distance.