A gonioscopy lens for pulsed-laser trabeculotomy.
We designed an indirect gonioscopy lens capable of handling the high powers generated by short-duration pulsed lasers. The lens is composed of an equilateral quartz prism within which the entire laser beam is internally reflected and connected to the cornea with saline solution. The reflected beam subsequently passes through the index-matched cornea to the trabecular region. Chromatic aberration is minimal because refraction is eliminated by arranging the laser beam so that is crosses the dielectric interfaces in a near-normal direction. The reflection losses amount to less than 5%, even without antireflection coatings. A prism of glass is sufficiently robust to handle the 100-kW pulses from a dye laser.
D006068:Gonioscopy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006801:Humans; D053685:Laser Therapy; D007909:Lenses; D014129:Trabecular Meshwork / Q000601:surgery*