CO2 laser effects on dermis tissue

CO2 laser (10.6 μm) is well-known infrared coherent source as a tool in surgery. In that wavelength because of vibration mode resonance of H2O molecules, there is a high absorbance coefficient (860 cm-1).Therefore, the most part of the irradiation energy is absorbed in the tissue and the temperature of the tissue arises as a function of power density and laser exposure duration. In this work, tissue depth damage, thermal damage at the edges and mean diameter of the damaged region are studied for 130 mouse skin samples which are irradiated by CO2 laser ( 1-10 W, 200-2000 W/cm-2, 0.1-1.2 s). It shows that the thermal damage and mean depth of the ablated regions increase with laser fluence and those are saturated at 500 J/cm-2. Moreover, the damage effects of high fluence at short duration time are not in the same with low fluence at longer time (in both cases the products of fluences and time durations are the same).

CO2 laser effects on dermis tissue Keywords:

Dermis , CO2 laser , Thermal damage , Bunsen-Roscoe law