Received: 30 June 2016 | Revised: 18 August 2016 | Accepted: 25 August 2016

DOI 10.1002/jemt.22775

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Morphological investigation of various orthodontic lingual

bracket slots using scanning electron microscopy and atomic
force microscopy

Samjin Choi1† | Jae-Hyung Kim2† | Nam-Joon Kim3 | Seung-Hoon Lee3 |

Hyunsoo Kim3 | Kyung-A Kim2 | Ki-Ho Park2 | Young-Guk Park2

1
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University,
Seoul, 02447, Korea
2
Department of Orthodontics, School of
Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
02447, Korea
3
Department of Dentistry, Graduate School,
Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea
Correspondence
Young-Guk Park, D.M.D., Ph.D., Depart-
ment of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry,
Kyung Hee University, 26, Kyungheedae-ro,
Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02447, Korea.
Email: medchoi@khu.ac.kr
Abstract
Various labial and lingual orthodontic appliances with aesthetic materials have been developed
due to an increased demand in aesthetic orthodontic treatment. However, there are few reports
regarding the morphology of lingual orthodontic appliances. Therefore, this study evaluates the
roughness of slot surfaces of various orthodontic lingual brackets using field emission scanning
electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Three types of stainless steel
lingual brackets (Stealth®, 7th Generation®, and Clippy L®) and one gold lingual bracket (Incogni-
toTM) with a slot size of 0.018 inches 3 0.025 inches (0.457 3 0.635 mm2) were selected as
representative lingual materials. Both FE-SEM and AFM examinations showed that the Stealth®
and Clippy L® brackets had the lowest surface roughness, while the 7th Generation® bracket had
the highest surface roughness. There was a significant difference in surface morphology between
the types of lingual brackets, even when composed of the same material. The surface roughness
of the bracket slot was dependent on the manufacturing process or surface polishing process
rather than the fundamental properties of the bracket materials. There was no significant differ-
ence in the mean surface roughness of the slot floor between gold and stainless steel lingual
brackets. These findings suggest that, although the gold lingual bracket is very expensive, it has
great potential for use in patients with nickel allergy.

KEYWORDS
atomic force microscopy, gold lingual brackets, orthodontic lingual brackets, scanning electron
microscopy, surface roughness

1 | INTRODUCTION
The frictional resistance between fixed orthodontic appliances and the
archwire is crucial for determining the effectiveness of tooth move-
ment. Most studies have concentrated on the mechanical factors that
affect the frictional resistance between the bracket slot and the arch-
wire. They included the properties and surface roughness of the
bracket (Angolkar et al., 1990), the shape of the bracket (Sims et al.,
1993; Sung and Park, 1991), the width and depth of the bracket slot
(Drescher et al., 1989), the properties and surface roughness of the
archwire (Drescher et al., 1989; Kusy et al., 1988; Min and Suhr, 1988),
†
These authors contributed equally to this study.
Review Editor: Prof. Alberto Diaspro
the cross-sectional area of the archwire (Min and Suhr, 1988; Sung and
Park, 1991), the ligating material (Drescher et al., 1989), and the liga-
tion methods (Sims et al., 1993). Among the mechanical factors, the
surface roughness of the bracket is an important factor that determines
the contact area and influences the corrosion behavior and biocompati-
bility of the material (Ryu et al., 2015). Surface roughness is a charac-
teristic of the material itself and can be influenced by manufacturing
processes such as polishing and heat treatment. Due to the influence
of the coefficient of friction, the roughness of the material can affect
the sliding mechanics such that friction is directly related to the rough-
ness of the bracket surfaces. Previous studies measuring the surface
roughness of various brackets and archwires were performed using
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) or a surface profilometer (Choi

Microsc. Res. Tech. 2016; 79: 1193–1199 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jemt V

C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1193
1194 | CHOI ET AL.

et al., 2012a,b; Doshi and Bhad-Patil, 2011; Liu et al., 2013). However, T A B LE 1 Specifications of the four lingual brackets used in this
there were some limitations in these approaches. SEM could not detect studya
real-time changes in surface roughness and did not allow for quantita- Slot Manufacturing
tive or qualitative analyses of the specimens (Choi et al., 2012a; Lee Bracket Manufacturer material method

et al., 2010). A profilometer can damage the surface being scanned and Stealth® American SS Milling
Orthodontics (USA)
may lead to false results, as surface defects adjacent to the scanning
7th Ormco (USA) SS Milling
line are not measured (Bourauel et al., 1998). In order to overcome
Generation®
these disadvantages, atomic force microscopy (AFM), which provides
Clippy L® Tomy (Japan) SS Injection molding
quantitative information on the surface roughness of orthodontic TM
Incognito 3M Unitek Gold Customized casting
materials, was proposed (Lee et al., 2010; Lin et al., 2006). AFM can (Germany)
also provide three-dimensional depth information based on reconstruc- a
SS, stainless steel. Dental casting gold alloy Type IV.
tion from the two-dimensional surface morphology and the material’s
mechanical properties (Choi et al., 2014).
Most AFM-assisted studies that evaluated the morphological 2 | MATERIAL AND METHODS
changes in the surface of orthodontic bracket-archwire systems have
focused on labial appliances (Choi et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2010; Lin et al., 2.1 | Materials
2006; Park et al., 2010). However, the recent trend in orthodontic treat-
Four as-received lingual brackets (n 5 10 per each, Table 1) with a slot
ment is for aesthetic brackets (Ryu et al., 2015); thus, many labial and lin-
size of 0.018 3 0.025 inches (0.457 3 0.635 mm2) were investigated
gual appliances have been developed using new materials. An
in this study (Figure 1). There were three types of stainless steel lingual
orthodontic lingual bracket has different dimensions and clinical features
brackets, the Stealth® (American Orthodontics, Sheboygan, WI), the
compared to an orthodontic labial bracket. Therefore, the surface rough-
7th Generation® (Ormco, Glendora, CA), and the Clippy L® (Tomy,
ness of these lingual brackets should be compared with that of labial
Tokyo, Japan), and one gold lingual bracket, the IncognitoTM (3M Uni-
brackets. To the best of our knowledge, few studies have reported the
tek, Puchheim, Germany). To apply the AFM technique to lingual brack-
surface roughness of commercially available lingual brackets (Ortan et al.,
ets, the wings of all brackets were removed by a high-speed hand drill,
2012). The purpose of this study is to investigate the surface roughness
and the wing-eliminated brackets were fully rinsed with physiologic
of the slots of various orthodontic lingual brackets, particularly stainless
saline and dried using an air syringe.
steel and gold lingual brackets, using SEM and AFM techniques.

FIGURE 1 Representative orthodontic lingual brackets: (a) Stealth®, (b) 7th Generation®, (c) Clippy L®, and (d) IncognitoTM. Scale
bar 5 500 lm. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
CHOI ET AL. | 1195

T A B LE 2 Specifications of AFM cantilever 2.3 | Analysis

Parameter Value The planification process of all two-dimensional AFM topographical
Material Silicon images was primarily performed to evaluate surface roughness. The
Front coating none morphological changes in the surfaces of each bracket slot were eval-
Reflex side coating 30 nm (Au) uated with four surface roughness parameters, average roughness (Sa)
Length (lm) 450 6 10 indicating the arithmetic average of the height in the image (eq. 1);
Width (lm) 40 6 5 root-mean-square roughness (Sq) indicating the square root of the
Thickness (lm) 2.5 6 0.5 arithmetic average of the squares of the height in the image, which is
Spring constant (N/m) 0.2 especially useful when the heights include both positive and negative
Resonance frequency (kHz) 12 values (eq. 2); peak-to-peak height roughness (Sz) indicating the differ-
ence between the highest and lowest pixels in the image (eq. 3); and
10-point height roughness (S10z) indicating the average height of the
five highest local maximums plus the average height of the five lowest
2.2 | Instrumentation
local minimums (eq. 4). These values were calculated using SPIP soft-
The lingual bracket morphologies were determined using S-4700 ware (Image Metrology, Hørsholm, Denmark).
field emission SEM (FE-SEM; Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan). Each bracket
X N21
1 M21 X
was immobilized on a brass stub using double-sided tape before Sa 5 jzðxk ; yl Þj (1)
MN k50 l50
sequential vacuum coating with platinum. The brackets were exam-
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u
ined with a beam voltage of 10 kV and 5003 magnifications. u 1 M X 21 N X 21
Sq 5t ½zðxk ; yl Þ2 (2)
Tapping-mode AFM topographical images were obtained using a MN k50 l50
NANOS N8 NEOS (Bruker, Herzogenrath, Germany) equipped with a
Sz 5zmax 2zmin (3)
43 3 43 3 4 lm3 XYZ scanner. The slot surfaces of each lingual
!
bracket were scanned with a resolution of 256 3 256 pixels and a X
5 X5
S10z 5 jzpi j1 jzvi j =5 (4)
scan-speed of 0.4 lines/s in air using the silicon cantilever (Table 2). i50 i50
All AFM topographical images were scanned using an area of 20 3
where z indicates the height in the M 3 N rectangular image, M 5 20
20 lm2 (Choi et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2013).
lm, and N 5 20 lm.

F I G U R E 2 FE-SEM topographical images (5003) of the four as-received orthodontic lingual: (a) Stealth®, (b) 7th Generation®, (c) Clippy
L®, and (d) IncognitoTM. Scale bar 5 20 lm
1196 | CHOI ET AL.

FIGURE 3 Tapping-mode AFM two-dimensional topography images of four as-received orthodontic lingual brackets: (a) Stealth®, (b)
7th Generation®, (c) Clippy L®, and (d) IncognitoTM. Scale bar 5 2.5 lm. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

2.4 | Statistics
Quantitative data were expressed as mean 6 standard deviation. Statis-
tical analyses were performed to compare surface roughness between
the four types of orthodontic lingual brackets using one-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA). Additional post-hoc multiple comparisons between
each bracket were performed using the Student–Newman–Keuls test
when appropriate (Choi et al., 2012b). An independent t-test was per-
formed to investigate whether there was an overall difference in the
surface roughness of bracket slots between stainless steel and gold lin-
gual brackets. P-values< 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
3 | RESULTS
The slot surfaces of four as-received orthodontic lingual brackets were
ultrastructurally characterized by an FE-SEM machine (Figure 2). Some
particles and debris were observed in all lingual brackets. The Stealth
group (Figure 2A) and the Clippy L group (Figure 2C) had the lowest
surface roughness of the bracket slots, and the 7th Generation group
(Figure 2B) had the highest surface roughness compared to other
orthodontic lingual brackets. The Incognito group exhibited many gold
particles on the bracket slot surface.
The slot surfaces of four as-received orthodontic lingual brackets
were nanostructurally characterized by an AFM machine (Figure 3).
Tapping-mode AFM topography images showed similar findings to
those of the FE-SEM analysis. The Stealth and Clippy L groups exhib-
ited a smooth surface roughness, and the 7th Generation group had a
rough surface. Furthermore, the Incognito group exhibited extensive
distribution of gold nanoparticles. Quantitative analytic findings calcu-
lated from AFM topography images using eqs. 1 through 4 are sum-
marized in Table 3. The surface roughness values of all groups were
significantly different (ANOVA, P < 0.001). The post-hoc multiple

T A B LE 3 Surface roughness statistics of four orthodontic lingual brackets

Surface Orthodontic lingual bracket groups (n 5 10) P-value

roughness Stealth 7th Generation Clippy L Incognito ANOVA F-ratio
Sa 45.1 6 4.1 a
222.4 6 38.1 b
36.2 6 6.7 a
141.5 6 9.5 c
<0.001 99.08
Sq 60.3 6 3.9a 285.8 6 55.9b 50.7 6 8.8a 172.1 6 11.2c <0.001 75.73
Sz 668.1 6 126.0 a
2187.2 6 469.9 b
712.5 6 48.5 a
1314.3 6 265.1 c
<0.001 26.70
S10z 630.2 6 103.5a 1877.5 6 505.0b 602.6 6 61.8a 1054.7 6 102.2c <0.001 25.66

Labels with different letters indicate a significant difference (Student–Newman–Keuls test, p < 0.05) according to ANOVA.
CHOI ET AL. | 1197

T A B LE 4 Comparison of the mean roughness between stainless affect frictional resistance (Angolkar et al., 1990; Drescher et al., 1989;
steel and gold lingual brackets Kusy et al., 1988; Min and Suhr, 1988; Sims et al., 1993; Sung and
Surface roughness p-value Park, 1991). In particular, most studies have concentrated on evaluating
Sa 50.2363 the surface roughness of brackets and archwires because friction is

Sq 50.3552 largely known to be determined by surface roughness (Pratten et al.,

Sz 50.6698
S10z 50.9422
comparison test (P < 0.05) showed that the Stealth and Clippy L groups
had the lowest roughness with a similar value range, followed by the
Incognito group and the 7th Generation group (Supporting Information
Figure S1). The mean roughness parameter, Sa (F-ratio 5 99.08), had
the highest significant difference compared with other roughness
parameters. However, there was no significant difference in the mean
surface roughness between the stainless steel and gold orthodontic lin-
gual brackets (Table 4). The reconstructed AFM three-dimensional
images (Figure 4) provided the detailed nanostructure of the bracket
surfaces, while tapping-mode AFM two-dimensional deflection images
(Supporting Information Figure S2) provided the boundary information
of the bracket surfaces.
4 | DISCUSSION
Friction in the archwire-bracket system is a detrimental factor that
obstructs the movement of the teeth during sliding mechanics (Doshi
and Bhad-Patil, 2011). Many studies have reported several factors that
1990) and is closely related to the surface characteristics (Burrow,
2009). Our research group has reported a positive correlation between
the surface roughness of labial bracket slots and frictional resistance
(Choi et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2010; Lin et al., 2006; Park et al., 2010).
However, Doshi and Bhad-Patil (2011) reported no correlation
between wire roughness and frictional resistance. Additionally, the
material of orthodontic appliances is one of the main factors that
determine frictional resistance. Previous studies have revealed that
stainless steel had the lowest surface roughness, followed by cobalt-
chrome, beta-titanium, and NiTi (Kusy et al., 1988).
Most previous studies have compared the SEM-evaluated surface
roughness between stainless steel and ceramic brackets and concluded
that ceramic materials had significantly greater variability in surface
roughness than stainless steel brackets (Bednar et al., 1991; Pratten
et al., 1990). Liu et al. (2013) reported a significant difference in surface
morphology according to the type of stainless steel bracket. In the
present study, the surface morphology of four intact lingual brackets
was investigated by FE-SEM (Figure 2). There were some particles and
debris on all bracket surfaces. The Clippy L group had the lowest sur-
face roughness, while the 7th Generation group had the highest sur-
face roughness. These findings were consistent with a previous study
on labial brackets (Ortan et al., 2012). The morphology of gold lingual

FIGURE 4 Reconstructed AFM three-dimensional images of four as-received orthodontic lingual brackets: (a) Stealth®, (b) 7th Generation®,
(c) Clippy L®, and (d) IncognitoTM. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
1198 | CHOI
brackets (Incognito group) was first investigated in this study. Our find-
ings revealed many gold nanoparticles on the surface of the slot floor,
creating an irregular surface morphology with a higher roughness than
that of the Stealth and Clippy L groups. This was likely due to the
mechanical and electrical characteristics of gold alloy materials. This
gold alloy-fabricated lingual bracket is expected to have benefits for
patients with a nickel allergy.
Park et al. (2010) used AFM to analyze the surface of different
ceramic bracket slots and reported a significant variation in surface
roughness between the ceramic brackets. Some ceramic brackets had a
lower surface roughness than stainless steel brackets. This indicates
that the surface roughness of the bracket slot is dependent on the
manufacturing process and/or surface polishing process rather than
the fundamental properties of bracket materials. Similar to the FE-SEM
observations, our AFM-evaluated findings showed that the Stealth and
Clippy L groups had the lowest surface roughness and the 7th Genera-
tion group had the highest surface roughness. The AFM-evaluated sur-
face roughness of the gold lingual brackets (Incognito,
Sa 5 141.5 6 9.5 nm) showed a significant difference compared to the
other brackets. The Incognito group had a significantly higher surface
roughness than the Stealth and Clippy L groups; however, it had a sig-
nificantly lower surface roughness than the 7th Generation group
(Table 3). Furthermore, the mean surface roughness of the Incognito
brackets made from gold alloy materials was not significantly different
compared with that of stainless steel lingual brackets (Table 4). This
finding was likely due to the large variation in the mean surface rough-
ness between the types of stainless steel brackets. The AFM three-
dimensional topographical images suggest that the findings of the
Incognito groups were due to sample preparation related to certain
properties of gold alloy materials including surface hardness, elastic
modulus, viscosity, or viscoelasticity. The surface roughness of bracket
slots is mainly due to the manufacturing process (Quinsat and Tournier,
2012). AFM-evaluated surface roughness measurements are advanta-
geous in that they provide three-dimensional configurations and quan-
titative information on the targeted surface area without changing the
surface of the bracket slot (Hegedus et al., 1999). However, SEM and
optical interferometry profilometer-evaluated surface roughness mea-
surement may change the surface morphology and roughness (Liu
et al., 2013). Therefore, AFM is a superior research tool for quantita-
tively measuring the surface roughness of orthodontic appliances.
5 | CONCLUSIONS
This study investigated the surface roughness of three types of stain-
less steel lingual brackets (Stealth®, 7th Generation®, and Clippy L®)
and one gold lingual bracket (IncognitoTM) with a slot size of 0.018
inches 3 0.025 inches (0.457 3 0.635 mm) using SEM and AFM tech-
niques. AFM measurements provided many benefits compared with
conventional SEM measurements. The following findings were
observed from this study:
1 The Stealth and Clippy L groups had the lowest roughness, fol-
lowed by the Incognito group and the 7th Generation group.
ET AL.
2 There was a significant difference in surface morphology among
lingual brackets even when made from the same material.
3 The surface roughness of the bracket slot was dependent on the
manufacturing process or the surface polishing process, rather
than the fundamental property of bracket materials.
4 There is no significant difference in the mean surface roughness
of the slot floor between gold and stainless steel lingual brackets.
Further studies are required to analyze macroscopic characteristics
of lingual brackets with a noncontact surface profilometer. This will
help determine the relationship between surface roughness of the lin-
gual brackets and the LFM-evaluated friction force. Additionally, we
will be able to characterize the relationship between surface roughness
and frictional force in various lingual brackets determined by an in vitro
and in vivo sliding test.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was supported by a grant from the Korean Health Tech-
nology Research and Development Project, supported by the Minis-
try of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (HI14C2241).
CONFLICT OF INTERE ST
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
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