title: Corneal multiphoton microscopy and intratissue optical nanosurgery by nanojoule femtosecond near-infrared pulsed lasers.
abstract: Multiphoton microscopy including multiphoton autofluorescence imaging (MAI) and second-harmonic generation (SHG) is being used as a novel diagnostic tool to perform tissue nonlinear optical tomography with submicron resolution. The three-dimensional corneal ultrastructure of whole depth has been viewed without any staining or mechanical slicing. Compared with photodisruptive surgical effects occurring at TW/cm2 light intensity, multiphoton imaging can be induced at MW-GW/ cm2 photon intensity. The intratissue surgical effect including nanojoule (nJ) femtosecond laser ablation and flap generation was induced through multiphoton nonlinear absorption at a wavelength of 800 nm and ascertained by the histological outcomes. More interesting, the multiphoton microscopy based on nonlinear absorption of femtosecond laser pulses at the wavelength of 715-930 nm emitted from solid-state Ti:sapphire system is acting as a precise non-invasive monitoring tool to determine the interest of region, to visualize and verify the outcomes in in vivo intrastromal laser nanosurgery. Overall, these data suggest that multiphoton microscopy is a highly sensitive and promising technique for studying the morphometric and biomechanical properties of biological tissues and that the nJ ultrashort Lasers can be used as a ultra-precise nanoscalpel for performing intratissue surgery.
authors.affiliation: Lasermicroscopy Research Group, Institute of Anatomy/Anatomy II, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Bao-Gui
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Kari-Juergen
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Halbhuber
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003315:Cornea / Q000601:surgery* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D003316:Corneal Diseases / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D019573:Epithelium, Corneal / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D053685:Laser Therapy; D036103:Nanotechnology; D017785:Photons; D013524:Surgical Flaps