Bovine cortical bone ablation by femtosecond laser (Conference Presentation)

Ultrashort lasers are promising tools for surgical and dental applications where precise cutting of hard tissue is required with minimal collateral tissues damage. We report the use of an amplified femtosecond laser (800 nm, 210 fs, 1 kHz, and up to 200 µJ) to generate high aspect ratio structures on bovine bone samples. The ablation fluence threshold of bovine bone was determined and the incubation effect was observed. The incubation coefficient and the single-pulse ablation threshold were calculated to be 0.90±0.02 and 1.43±0.09 J/cm2, respectively. The influence of experimental conditions on laser ablation were also investigated by performing craters with dimensions of 1000 x 220 µm under dry, compressed air, and flowing water treatments during ablation. Our results show that compressed air treatment produced the lower roughness of crater walls as well as highest depth, compared with those of dry and water conditions. The craters produced in dry and compressed air treatment have a “V” shape, while a “U” shape was observed when using flowing water treatment.