Britons heading to the emergency dentist to get a filling could soon be able to have an entirely new filling material used.

Kent Coulter and his colleagues at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio have developed a new alternative to amalgam which can be packed into cavities – once they have been fully cleaned – and then cured without shrinking to create a filling.

It is primarily made up of the same material used to make cubic zirconia or fake gemstones. However the zirconia platelets as they are called will not be brittle like their jewellery counterparts but instead set solid due to the particular arrangement of atoms in the material.

Elsewhere, a new scanning technique using laser technology has been designed which can take a perfect image of the inside of a person’s mouth.

Scientists are then able to use this data to make dental implant and veneers which are perfectly sized to fit the individual, meaning less painful treatments and fewer trips to the dentist.