Medical applications for ultrafast laser pulses

Abstract

Ultrafast lasers have become a promising tool for micromachining and extremely precise ablation of all kinds of materials. Due to the low energy threshold, thermal and mechanical side effects are limited to the sub m range. The neglect of side effects enables the use of ultrashort laser pulses in a broad field of medical applications. Moreover, the interaction process based on nonlinear absorption offers the opportunity to process transparent tissue three dimensionally inside the bulk. The feasibility of surgical procedures in different fields of medical interest is demonstrated. In ophthalmology intrastromal cutting and preparing of cornael flaps for refractive surgery in living animals is presented. Besides, the very low mechanical side effects enables the use of fs-laser in otolaryngology to treat ocecular bones. Moreover, the precise cutting quality can be used in fields of cardiovascular surgery for the treatment of arteriosclerosis as well as in dentistry to remove caries from dental hard tissue.