Mid-IR tissue ablation using a solid-state 5-7 /spl mu/m tunable source

This study investigates IR tissue ablation in the 5-7 /spl mu/m region using a solid-state tunable source operating at a wavelength range of 4.5-8 /spl mu/m. Preliminary light microscopy evaluations show that the ablation craters generated in gelation tissue phantoms using optical parametric oscillator (OPO) look very similar in appearance to those generated by free-electron laser (FEL). Therefore, this suggests that the ablation mechanism at 6.45 /spl mu/m is thermal in nature.