Echelle spectrometers offer high-resolution (ca. one Angstrom or higher) and wide range (ca. half a micron or wider), simultaneously, without having a mechanical moving part. However, they require a complicated optical set-up as compared to conventional one-dimensional-dispersion/diffraction spectrometers, e.g., Czerny-Turner. Therefore, the simulation of the Echellogram is required before building the spectrometer. This paper aims to develop an application for visualizing the Echellogram using MATLAB App Designer followed by simulation of the optical aberrations by Zemax OpticStudio to optimize the spectrometer parameters. The developed application provides an interactive graphical interface with a user-friendly dashboard to control and monitor the required parameters. This spectrometer is being used in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) system application lied of robot-guided laser ablation of biological tissues.@en

To obtain efficient laser ablation in bone, dehydration, early carbonization and carbonization need to be avoided. Achieving this can only be provided by using an automated control of the ablation laser and irrigation system. As a preliminary study, we demonstrated a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy based early carbonization detection system by analyzing carbonized bone tissues. Carbonization of bone samples was generated in a controlled way, by applying different number of Er:YAG pulses (0–25) at different locations on bone sample. To detect number of applied pulses, leading to the detection of carbonization level, we used a feed-forward Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with multi-layer perceptron structure. The results of the ANN were compared with the actual label, and R-squared of 0.85, 0.88, 0.86, 0.83, and 0.84 (0.85 on average) were achieved.@en

A novel real-time and non-destructive method for differentiating soft from hard tissue in laser osteotomy has been introduced and tested in a closed-loop fashion. Two laser beams were combined: a low energy frequency-doubled nanosecond Nd:YAG for detecting the type of tissue, and a high energy microsecond Er:YAG for ablating bone. The working principle is based on adjusting the energy of the Nd:YAG laser until it is low enough to create a microplasma in the hard tissue only (different energies are required to create plasma in different tissue types). Analyzing the light emitted from the generated microplasma enables real-time feedback to a shutter that prevents the Er:YAG laser from ablating the soft tissue.@en

Minimally invasive laser surgeries that require the use of a flexible endoscope (flexiscope) could benefit from high-energy nanosecond laser pulses delivered through fibers for real-time tissue characterization and phenotyping. The damage threshold of the fiber's glass material limits the maximum amount of deliverable peak power. To transmit high-energy pulses without damaging the fiber material, large-diameter fibers are typically used, leading to a limited bending radius. Moreover, in a large-core fiber, self-focusing can damage the fiber even if the tip remains intact. In this work, we tested a fused-end fiber bundle combined with a beam shaper capable of delivering more than 20 MW (>100 mJ/5 ns). The fiber bundle was tested over more than eight hours of operation, with different bending radiuses down to 15 mm. The results demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, the highest peak power delivered through a flexible fiber, for a frequency-doubled Q-switched Nd:YAG laser.@en