Fig. 3.

Histology using H&E stain after RSA laser ablation of excised soft tissues: (A) goat cornea, (B) rat heart, (C) rat skin and (D) rat kidney. All ablations were performed at a wavelength of 6.1 µm and a pulse repetition rate of 10 Hz. For (A), the laser was focused onto the cornea surface through air, delivering ~1.9 mJ/pulse to ablate a series of overlapping 10-pulse craters. For (B-D), the laser was delivered through a hollow glass waveguide and handheld probe. This limited delivery to 0.6 mJ/pulse, but allowed the user to manually scan the beam across the tissues as in an actual surgical procedure. Thermal damage is most evident in cornea as the darker region along the crater edge, which is 15-µm thick on average. In the other tissues, thermal damage ranges from minimal to not measureable.