Light characterization
Absolute irradiance and radiant exposure to ISO 10650-2, spectrally resolved across 360–540 nm, with the violet/blue split polywave lights require.
Education / Research
The measurement platform behind 200+ publications .
For two decades the MARC platform has been the laboratory reference for characterizing dental curing lights, across degree of conversion, depth of cure, restorative materials, and clinical outcomes. We're rebuilding the index as a searchable, citable library, and we run new studies with researchers and manufacturers today.
- 200+Peer-reviewed publications
- ISO 10650-2Conformant measurement
- 360–540 nmSpectrally resolved
- NIST-traceableCalibration
The reference
The science the rest of the curriculum is built on.
Every claim on this site, the failure rates, the conversion data, the school-program outcomes, traces back to measurement on the MARC platform. The MARC Light Collector resolves absolute irradiance and radiant exposure by wavelength with integrating-sphere geometry, NIST-traceable calibration, and ISO 10650-2 conformance: the setup reviewers at the major dental journals expect.
That rigor is why the platform has appeared in 200+ peer-reviewed publications, with researchers including Richard Price, Adrian Shortall, William Palin, and Mohammed Hadis, across journals such as Dental Materials, PLOS ONE, Operative Dentistry, and the European Journal of Dentistry.
Research work we can do
Scoped studies, on your bench or ours.
The data is immutable and reproducible, delivered in the formats your team works in. Where it makes sense, we co-author.
Material & transmission
Degree of conversion, depth of cure, and light transmission through composites and ceramics measured by wavelength, for formulation and IFU work.
Photoinitiator matching
Which lights can actually cure a given chemistry, camphorquinone (blue, ~468 nm) versus blue-violet systems, quantified, not assumed.
Degradation & endurance
How a unit's output and spectrum change across its service life, from repeated high-power cycles to years of clinical use.
Instrument validation
Chairside radiometers and meters benchmarked against a NIST-traceable reference: the comparison that exposed field-meter error of 7%–535%.
Field evidence at scale
Custom analysis on 275,000+ real-world light evaluations: how lights and materials actually perform across 62,000+ clinics.
Selected findings
What measurement at this grade reveals.
A sample from the corpus. The full searchable library is being indexed.
A one-minute feedback session on the MARC-PS simulator raised optimal-dose cures (≥16 J/cm²) from 69.7% to 90.9%, across dental students, assistants, hygienists, and dentists.
Agostini-Walesch et al., J Dental Education, 2026
Eight multi-peak curing lights varied widely in blue-to-violet output (3:1 to 30:1), and violet light was attenuated ~98% through 4 mm of composite: integrating-sphere spectroscopy from the Dalhousie group.
Maucoski et al., Journal of Dentistry, 2026
Chairside radiometer error ranged from 7% to 535% against the MARC reference across 16 meters and 38 curing lights.
Shortall, Hadis & Palin, PLOS ONE, 2021
Foundational validation of checkMARC / MARC-LC against a benchtop integrating sphere on eight curing lights, per ISO 10650-2.
Shortall, Felix & Watts, Dental Materials, 2015
An integrating-sphere spectrometer, NIST-traceable, used as the gold-standard reference for curing-light output.
Maucoski et al., PLOS ONE, 2022
Across 178 curing lights, aged units lost 20%+ of their output, measured chairside on a MARC-validated platform.
Imbery et al., Operative Dentistry, 2022
Citations are listed by author, journal, and year while the full library is indexed for direct linking.
Researching curing? We'd like to hear from you.
If you're working on degree of conversion, depth of cure, a new monomer or photoinitiator system, or a field study, and you need MARC-platform measurement, the lab team can scope it.