Abstract
Ultrafast pulsed lasers can be used to achieve remarkable precision during surgical ablation. Through nonlinear interactions with tissue, ultrafast lasers can provide a largely non-Thermal mechanism of ablation and a unique ability to create targeted damage within bulk tissue. These advantages havemade ultrafast lasers the ideal surgical tool for various novel applications in ophthalmology. Clinical adoption of ultrafast lasers in other surgical applications remains limited in part due to the lack of a means for fiber delivery of ultrafast laser pulses as a flexible, hand-held surgical endoscope. This review provides an overview of the recent advances in bringing this unique surgical tool into the clinic.We discuss fundamental mechanisms and limitations of ultrafast laser ablation, novel techniques for overcoming these limitations, the current state of clinical applications, and conclude with our recent efforts in developing fiber-coupled probes for flexible ultrafast laser surgery and imaging.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 6683019 |
Journal | IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2013 IEEE.
Funding
Manuscript received July 16, 2013; revised August 29, 2013; accepted August 30, 2013. Date of current version December 12, 2013. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants BES-0548673, CBET-1014953, and Career Award CBET-0846868, as well as a grant from the Texas Ignition Fund by the University of Texas Board of Regents.
Funders | Funder number |
---|---|
University of Texas Board of Regents | |
National Science Foundation | BES-0548673, CBET-0846868, CBET-1014953 |
Keywords
- Biomedical Optical Imaging.
- Laser Ablation
- Nonlinear Optics
- Surgery