Plasma-mediated ablation of biological tissue with picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses

Ron M. Kurtz M.D.; Victor Elner M.D.; Xinbing Liu; Tibor Juhasz; Frieder H. Loesel; Christopher Horvath; Markolf H. Niemz; Frank Noack

doi:10.1117/12.275507

16 June 1997 Plasma-mediated ablation of biological tissue with picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses

Ron M. Kurtz M.D., Victor Elner M.D., Xinbing Liu, Tibor Juhasz, Frieder H. Loesel, Christopher Horvath, Markolf H. Niemz, Frank Noack

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 2975, Laser-Tissue Interaction VIII; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.275507
Event: BiOS '97, Part of Photonics West, 1997, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

We investigated plasma-mediated surface ablation in corneal tissue using picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses in order to achieve high precision, non-thermal tissue removal with a non-ultraviolet laser source. Experiments utilized three laser systems, a regeneratively amplified Ti:sapphire laser, a synchronously amplified dye laser, and a regeneratively amplified picosecond Nd:YLF laser. Tissue ablation was performed by tightly focusing the laser beam on the tissue surface. Ablation thresholds were determined by monitoring the plasma spark, as well as the tissue surface. Tissue ablations were then analyzed by standard histologic methods and scanning electron microscopy. We observed a decrease in the ablation fluence threshold as the pulse duration is shortened from 200 ps to approximately 140 fs, in agreement with our theoretical predictions. Using identical pulse energies, the femtosecond laser pulses ablated tissue at higher efficiencies than the picosecond laser, with an approximately two-fold improvement in the etch depth curve. Histologic analysis reveal minimal adjacent tissue damage at either pulse duration. Femtosecond laser pulses may offer advantages that make them ideal tools for high precision tissue ablation.

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Ron M. Kurtz M.D., Victor Elner M.D., Xinbing Liu, Tibor Juhasz, Frieder H. Loesel, Christopher Horvath, Markolf H. Niemz, and Frank Noack "Plasma-mediated ablation of biological tissue with picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses", Proc. SPIE 2975, Laser-Tissue Interaction VIII, (16 June 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.275507

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