Medical Laser Applications

The main research subjects of the group of Medical Laser Application are in the field of online monitoring and diagnostics as well as the development of new therapheutic methods. The main focus in research is based upon the use of ultrashort (fs) laser pulses.

The main advantage of ultrashort laser pulses is the extrem short interaction time which suppress any unwanted side effects of the laser irradiation of the tissue. Secondly the broad spectra of the fs laser pulses give the advantage to use the same laser pulses for diagnostic applications like the optical coherence tomography (OCT).

Following research subjects have special attention at the moment:

Vitreo-retinal Surgery

For vitreo-retinal surgery, an ophthalmological system is developed that allows for correcting the aberrations in eyes with adaptive optics in order to precisely deliver fs-laser pulses for a photodisruption process in the posterior eye segment. This offers a new possibility for a minimally invasive treatment for several retinal or vitreal pathologies.

Optical Coherence Tomographie (OCT)

Short-coherent light sources (broadband cw or fs-pulsed) can be used to obtain subsurface images of tissue by interferometric detection. This group uses OCT to take non-invasive optical biopsies of the vocal fold and to measure the outline of the crystalline lens.

Refractive Surgery

The principle of getting rid of glasses with the help of a laser surgery (fs-LASIK), is underlying rapid improvements concerning precision and safety. New technologies were evaluated and transferred very fast in cooperation with an industrial partner.

Treatment of Presbyopia

The flexibility of the crystalline lens can be increase by pricise cuts which are induce by fs laser pulse inside the lens. The treatment of the presbyopia is thinkable.

Ultrafast Physics

Whereas the applications of ultrashort laser pulses increase rapidly is the physics of the interaction between the laser pulses and tissue in many case not fully understood. To obtain improved knowledge of the interaction for many fs-laser application this group preforms numerical simulations as well as fundamental experiments.