Status and improvements of UV laser scalpel

During the last years we developed a flexible beam guiding system for DUV-laser radiation (λ=193 nm, 213 nm). This laser scalpel is based on hollow core waveguides and special fused silica optical fibers. We were able to demonstrate the feasibility of the laser scalpel to ablate biological tissues and technological materials. Our current interest is to develop a thinner scalpel tip which consists of 200 μm optical fibers instead of 600 μm fibers. The performance of these thin fibers was evaluated. We developed a computer controlled measurement system to study the optical fiber performance in dependence on laser fluence, laser intensity, laser repetition rate and fiber coupling conditions. We also investigated the long term behavior of the modified optical fibers for the laser scalpel.