Table 1.

Laser surgical-ablation of individual blastomere cells – Summary

Average laser power	Beam dwell time	Observations
25 mW	5 to 500 ms	Region near the blastomere-yolk interface could not be laser ablated. This result was independent of the chosen beam dwell time.
30 mW	50 to 200 ms	Region near the blastomere-yolk interface was occasionally laser ablated.
	> 500 ms	Laser ablation near the blastomere-yolk region occurred with high reproducibility.
40–45 mW	5 to 500 ms	Surgical-ablation near the blastomere-yolk region occurred for the entire beam dwell range. Cavitation bubbles were short lived for beam dwell times ≤ 100 ms. Above 100 ms, cavitation bubbles were large, with increased blastomere-surface damage.
> 45 mW	5 to 500 ms	Surgical-ablation persisted for the entire beam dwell range. Laser induced cavitation bubbles were large. A large area of blastomere-surface damage was observed.