Abstract

Presently there is a worldwide effort to pursue studies of the use of lasers on biomedical materials. The pending FEL facilities raises the hope that a pulsed tunable UV laser can be developed into a valuable surgical tool to provide a selective and controllable dosage of spatial and temporal ionizing radiation for use on the human body. However, the medical literature is bereft of systematic and reliable information on the interactions of lasers and biomedical materials. One necessary study is characterization of the interaction as a function of the laser beam parameters, which consist of wave length, pulse duration, power, geometric size, and penetration depth.

© 1988 Optical Society of America