The great versatility of fiber lasers make them very effective for both surgery and diagnostic imaging, providing a high level of accuracy, precision and safety. The main advantage of fiber lasers is their contactless process, but their compactness, high efficiency and ease of use are also essential benefits for medical applications.
Coractive’s active fibers are ideal for making compact fiber lasers and amplifiers.
Many diseases can be detected by monitoring specific changes in molecular composition by using optical fiber spectroscopic analysis. Endoscopes using optical fiber are also used as a tool for imaging purposes. Optical fiber can also be combined with catheters in order to provide an imaging diagnostic of an artery when bypass surgery is performed.
OCT is currently used in various medical areas, such as ophthalmology, as it uses a light source to take cross-section images for diagnostics. High-efficiency fiber lasers with a large spectrum are often used for this application.
Skin resurfacing and tattoo removal are medical procedures requiring high energy lasers. Although CO2 lasers are mostly used for these types of applications, recent advances are demonstrating the efficiency of 2 µm based fiber lasers in non-invasive skin ablation. For soft tissue ablation, 1064 nm fiber lasers can also be used.