Ultrafast lasers in ophthalmology

Abstract

Ultrafast laser pulses have become a promising tool for microsurgery of the eye. Due to the low energy threshold, side effects are limited to the micrometer range This precision enables the use of ultrashort laser pulses in a broad field of medical applications. Especially, the interaction process based on nonlinear absorption offers the opportunity to process transparent tissue not only on top of a surface but three dimensionally inside the bulk. This mechanism is used in refractive eye surgery, where fs pulses create flaps into the corneal tissue to remodel the curvature of the eye and to improve visual acuity. Moreover, fs pulses could be used to influence the biomechanics of the crystalline lens of the eye and improve accommodation on eyes who suffer from presbyopia.