US Patent 7581846 Dental light devices having an improved heat sink

The present invention relates to a heat sink material that can more efficiently remove or divert heat from a light source or sources with a given weight of heat sink material when compare to a heat sink made of a solid block of thermally conductive material such as metal. It further relates to a heat sink that can more efficiently remove or divert heat from a curing light device when a reduced weight of heat sink material is used. The inventive heat sink has at least one suitable phase change material including organic materials, inorganic materials and combinations thereof. These materials can undergo substantially reversible phase changes, and can typically go through a large, if not an infinite number of cycles without losing their effectiveness.