Automatic in-situ observation of tissue laser ablation using optical coherence tomography

In laser ablation of biological tissue, tomography of the tissue surface is necessary for measurement of the crater shape and the crater depth. We demonstrate here automatic in-situ observation of biological-tissue surface in laser ablation by OCT. Depth of a crater of human tooth is measured by these OCT images, and then the ablation rate of 0.21 /spl mu/m/pule is determined.