Abstract. A series of experiments are conducted in vivo using Yucatan mini-pigs (Sus scrofa domestica) to determine thermal damage thresholds to the skin from 1940-nm continuous-wave thulium fiber laser irradiation. Experiments employ exposure durations from 10 ms to 10 s and beam diameters of approximately 4.8 to 18 mm. Thermal imagery data provide a time-dependent surface temperature response from the laser. A damage endpoint of minimally visible effect is employed to determine threshold for damage at 1 and 24 h postexposure. Predicted thermal response and damage thresholds are compared with a numerical model of optical-thermal interaction. Results are compared with current exposure limits for laser safety. It is concluded that exposure limits should be based on data representative of large-beam exposures, where effects of radial diffusion are minimized for longer-duration damage thresholds.C 2010 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

A very high energy Q-switched Er-glass laser is reported. We incorporated a rotating, resonant mirror/Porro-cavity reflector optical arrangement to achieve very high shutter speeds on the cavity Q of a laser designed for energetic, flashlamp-pumped, 600-µs, 1540-nm pulses. Reproducible 3.75-J, 35-ns, 1533-nm laser pulses were obtained at a repetition rate less than 1 minute. Our work shows that reliable, very high energy, Q-switched, Er-glass laser pulses at 1533 nm can be generated mechanically with no apparent damage to laser cavity components. We demonstrate the applications of this "eye safe" wavelength to energetic processes such as LIBS and materials processing. The laser could also serve as a new tool for bioeffects studies and targeting applications.

No abstract

No abstract

A series of experiments in a new animal model for retinal damage, cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis), have been conducted to determine the damage threshold for 12.5-nanosecond laser exposures at 1064 nm. These results provide a direct comparison to threshold values obtained in rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta), which is the model historically used in establishing retinal maximum permissible exposure (MPE) limits. In this study, the irradiance level of a collimated Gaussian laser beam of 2.5 mm diameter at the cornea was randomly varied to produce a rectangular grid of exposures on the retina. Exposures sites were fundoscopically evaluated at post-irradiance intervals of 1 hour and 24 hours. Probit analysis was performed on dose-response data to obtain probability of response curves. The 50% probability of damage (ED50) values for 1 and 24 hours post-exposure are 28.5(22.7-38.4) LJ and 17.0(12.9-21.8) PU, respectively. These values compare favorably to data obtained with the rhesus model, 28.7(22.3-39.3) lJ and 19.1(13.6-24.4) pJ, suggesting that the cynomolgus monkey may be a suitable replacement for rhesus monkey in photoacoustic minimum visible lesion threshold studies.