FIP Seminar Series - Dr. Adela Ben-Yakar "Image-guided ultrafast laser scalpels as the next generation precise and minimally invasive clinical surgery tools""

Adela Ben-Yakar
Associate Professor, Mr. N. Doug Williams Memorial Centennial Fellowship in Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin

The fundamental goal in surgery is to remove the unwanted tissue while preserving healthy tissue. Ablation with femtosecond laser pulses provides unprecedented microsurgical precision in tissue with minimal thermal and mechanical side effects. However, the application of this surgical method has been limited to ophthalmological applications mainly because of the lack of the fiber optic delivery of amplified ultrafast laser pulses to the surgical site through a flexible, miniaturized probe. Taking on this challenge, we have developed several generations of miniaturized endoscopic probes where the ultrashort laser pulses are delivered through air-core photonic bandgap fibers. The most recent development of a fully hand-held, 5 mm, piezo-actuated, ultrafast laser scalpel for microsurgery, have the capability to deliver energies in excess of 5 ¿J per pulse. This design incorporates Kagome fiber based laser delivery, piezoelectric scanning for beam steering, and a plug and play modular objective design with calcium fluoride lenses. Using these endoscopes, we demonstrated successful ablation and nonlinear imaging of cells and tissue with high resolution.