Interactions between material processing and surgery Available to Purchase

The present use of laser in surgery may be improved by modifications learned from similar processes in industrial applications. One of the major problems in materials processing is minimizing heat diffusion from the site of laser exposure. The same problem exists in surgical tissue cutting with a CO₂ laser. A proposal is made to use short duration pulses less than the thermal relaxation time of water (one microsecond) to minimize thermal diffusion, and also take advantage of the large heat removed by the phase change in water into steam. An examination of this proposal suggests that many short pulses are preferable to a single long duration exposure to make deep cuts, and that more delicate surgery may be possible with such types of energy delivery. Other typos of materials processing situations are related to surgical situations where the desired relative depth of absorption of each of the absorbers present can be selected by use of the proper wavelength and exposure duration.