Tissue Cutting by Ultrashort Pulses from a Ti-zaffire Laser System: Strong Reduction of Thermal Alteration Around the Cutting Line

摘要

A comparison of laser tissue cutting on bovine muscle samples, by a CO_2-CW laser and by a short-pulse (1 ps) amplified Ti-ZAFFIRE laser, has been performed. The CO_2 laser application shows a large area of burned tissue, whose extension can be as large as 300-400 μm. The Ti-ZAFFIRE laser application shows a sharp cutting line, without burned tissue around. Numerical simulations of the temperature increasing using repetitive (1 kHz) short pulses reveal that after 1/10 sec of application of 0.5 W of average power, the local temperature has reached the evaporation value of about 300-350℃.