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Laser Applications in Medicine and Biology pp 85–140Cite as

Nd:YAG Laser Ophthalmic Microsurgery

Time- and Space-Resolved Laser-Induced Breakdown in Liquids and Ocular Media

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Abstract

From the very beginning of the history of the laser, the eye has always played a leading role in connection with the development of laser sources, and of laser-based systems and techniques. From a laser safety viewpoint, in fact, the eye has been a constant reference to research and development with lasers, due to the potential risks connected with unwanted exposure of the retina. From an application viewpoint, the laser immediately found enormous interest as a tissue-selective, powerful and intense, noninvasive surgical tool for the treatment of many ocular pathologies. Until the beginning of this decade, laser-based microsurgery of the eye was dominated by CW or long-pulsed lasers, whose interaction with the ocular tissue was mainly governed by linear absorption of light and conversion to heat (thermal mechanisms). The pioneering works carried out in the early 1980s (Aron-Rosa et al. 1980; Fankhauser et al., 1981) with either mode-locked or Q-switched Nd:YAG lasers opened new exciting areas of interest for ophthalmic microsurgery, with the use of high-irradiance and short-duration laser pulses to perform microsurgery by means of nonthermal effects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Automazione Industriale, Università degli Studi di Brescia, 25060, Mompiano Brescia, Italy

    Franco Docchio

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  1. Franco Docchio
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    Myron L. Wolbarsht

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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Docchio, F. (1991). Nd:YAG Laser Ophthalmic Microsurgery. In: Wolbarsht, M.L. (eds) Laser Applications in Medicine and Biology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1704-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1704-1_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-1706-5

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