Portable optical ablation system

• US 8,398,622 B2
• Filed: 12/06/2010
• Issued: 03/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Rayd LLC
• Original Assignee: Raydiance, Inc. (Coherent Corp.)
• Inventors: Stoltz, Richard, Bullington, Jeff
• Primary Examiner(s): FARAH, AHMED M
• Application Number:
  US12/961,390
• Publication Number:
  US 20110073584A1
• Time in Patent Office: 834 Days
• Field of Search: 606 3- 12, 607/88, 607/89, 359/333, 35933711-33713, 359/341.4, 372/9, 372/29.01, 372/29.011, 372/29.012
• US Class Current: 606/10
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 18/20 using laser
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 18/22 the beam being directed along or through a flexible conduit, e.g. an optical fibre; Couplings or hand-pieces therefor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2018/00636 Sensing and controlling the application of energy

Abstract

The present invention includes an apparatus and method of surgical ablative material removal “in-vivo” or from an outside surface with a short optical pulse that is amplified and compressed using either an optically-pumped-amplifier and air-path between gratings compressor combination or a SOA and chirped fiber compressor combination, wherein the generating, amplifying and compressing are done within a portable system.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a pulse generator;

a man-portable amplifier and compressor combination to amplify the pulses and compress the pulses to generate amplified compressed pulses;

a handheld probe to apply the amplified compressed pulses to an object in order to remove material therefrom; and

an optical-fiber-containing umbilical cable to transport the pulses between components, the optical-fiber-containing umbilical cable including a feedback loop including a device to measure light leakage proportional to at least one of pulse power and energy to create a feedback loop.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical-fiber-containing umbilical cable transports the amplified compressed pulses from a compressor to a handheld probe.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the system removes surgical ablative material from a body with a short optical pulse that is amplified and then compressed.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the system generates an initial wavelength-swept-with-time pulse in a pulse generator.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the system amplifies the initial wavelength-swept-with-time pulse using an optical amplifier, to generate an amplified pulse.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the system generates a compressed optical pulse, wherein the amplification and compression are performed with either an optically-pumped-amplifier and air-path between gratings compressor combination, or a semiconductor optical amplifier and chirped fiber compressor combination.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the system applies the compressed optical pulse to a body, wherein the pulse generation, amplification, and compression are performed within a man-portable system.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the amplifier to amplify the initial wavelength-swept-with-time pulse includes more than one optical amplifier operated in a train mode to amplify the wavelength-swept-with-time pulse.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the compressor to compress the amplified pulse compresses pulses from more than one fiber-amplifier.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the amplifier to amplify the initial wavelength-swept-with-time pulse independently controls pulse energy density and ablation rate.