Apparatus and techniques described herein can include delivery of a surgical laser beam for tissue excision or to facilitate hemostasis. The surgical laser beam can be generated, for example, using an ultrafast laser source. Such an approach can provide non-invasive treatment in relation to, for example, aerodigestive anatomy, such as for treatment of laryngeal, oropharyngeal, bronchial, and oral cavity tissues. Other generally available laser sources and their associated treatments may present various drawbacks making them less suitable for treatment for laryngeal, pharyngeal or bronchial pathologies, and use of the apparatus and techniques described herein can address such drawbacks.

A method implemented in an ophthalmic surgical laser system that employs a resonant scanner, scan line rotator, and XY- and Z-scanners, for forming a corneal flap in a patient's eye with improved bubble management during each step of the flap creation process. A pocket cut is formed first below bed level, followed by the bed connected to the pocket cut, then by a side cut extending from the bed to the anterior corneal surface. The pocket cut includes a pocket region located below the bed level and a ramp region connecting the pocket region to the bed. The bed is formed by a hinge cut and a first ring cut at lower laser energies, followed by a bed cut and then a second ring cut, which ensures that any location in the flap bed is cut twice to minimize tissue adhesion. The side cut is formed by multiple side-cut layers at different depths which are joined together. All cuts are formed by scanning a laser scan line generated by the resonant scanner.

A co/counter propagating acousto-optic modulator is provided that creates a low-intensity focused ultrasound (FUS) wave on a laser beam in a medium such as water without any auxiliary mediators or special software/hardware. The main optical effect of the FUS is the controllable focusing of the laser beam through modification of the refractive index of the medium in a time-stable and dynamic fashion. The laser beam and the FUS wave are coaxially mixed and propagated through each other. The FUS pressure field highly amplifies the power density, highly amplifies the intensity, sharpens the diameter, and reduces the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the laser beam. The FUS pressure field keeps the laser beam's lensing power positive, with small fluctuations, as long as the ultrasound wave is coaxially propagated with the laser beam.

An ophthalmic surgical laser system and method for forming a lenticule in a subject's eye using fast-scan-slow-sweep scanning scheme. A high frequency scanner forms a fast scanline, which is placed tangential to a parallel of latitude of the surface of the lenticule and then moved in a slow sweep trajectory along a meridian of longitude of the surface of the lenticule in one sweep. Multiple sweeps are performed along different meridians to form the entire lenticule surface, with the orientation of the scanline rotated between successive sweeps. To reduce acceleration and jerk in the XY stage motion, especially during transition from one sweep to the next, the sweeping speed profile is a sigmoid function.

The present invention relates to method of measuring patient-specific temporomandibular joint relation and transferring it into a virtual articulator by using a device comprising: a transfer linkage which can be attached from its upper end to a face bow; an impression means for holding impression material and for taking the impression of the upper jaw and/or the lower jaw of the patient through said impression material; at least a first form-fitting component fixed at the lower end of the transfer linkage, for leaving an impression on the impression material to be placed on the grip of the impressions means projecting out of the mouth of the patient.

An ophthalmic surgical laser system and method for forming a lenticule in a subject's eye using fast-scan-slow-sweep scanning scheme. A high frequency scanner forms a fast scan line, which is placed tangential to a parallel of latitude of the surface of the lenticule and then then moved in a slow sweep trajectory along a meridian of longitude of the surface of the lenticule in one sweep. Multiple sweeps are performed along different meridians to form the entire lenticule surface, with the orientation of the scan line rotated between successive sweeps. To generate tissue bridge free incisions without leaving laser-induced marks in the eye, a laser pulse energy between 40 nJ to 70 nJ is used, and the sweeping speed is controlled such that the scan line step (the distance between the centers of consecutive scan lines) is between 1.7 m and 2.3 m.

Apparatus and techniques described herein can include delivery of a surgical laser beam for tissue excision or to facilitate hemostasis. The surgical laser beam can be generated, for example, using an ultrafast laser source. Such an approach can provide non-invasive treatment in relation to, for example, aerodigestive anatomy, such as for treatment of laryngeal, oropharyngeal, bronchial, and oral cavity tissues. Other generally available laser sources and their associated treatments may present various drawbacks making them less suitable for treatment for laryngeal, pharyngeal or bronchial pathologies, and use of the apparatus and techniques described herein can address such drawbacks.

A laser system includes a laser source generating a laser beam having ultra-short pulses; a laser delivery assembly optically receiving the laser beam and comprising: a beam splitter configured to split the laser beam between a first beam delivery path and a second beam delivery path; and at least one focusing lens optically coupled to the beam splitter and configured to focus the laser beam from each of the first beam delivery path and the second beam delivery path to a focal point on a predefined plane; wherein the first beam delivery path intersects the predefined plane at a first angle, the second beam delivery path intersects the predefined plane at a second angle, and a first pulse from the first beam delivery path and a second pulse from the second beam delivery path are coincident at the focal point.

An ophthalmic surgical laser system and method for forming a lenticule in a subject's eye using fast-scan-slow-sweep scanning scheme. A high frequency scanner forms a fast scan line, which is placed tangential to a parallel of latitude of the surface of the lenticule and then then moved in a slow sweep trajectory along a meridian of longitude of the surface of the lenticule in one sweep. Multiple sweeps are performed along different meridians to form the entire lenticule surface, with the orientation of the scan line rotated between successive sweeps. To generate tissue bridge free incisions without leaving laser-induced marks in the eye, a laser pulse energy between 40 nJ to 70 nJ is used, and the sweeping speed is controlled such that the scan line step (the distance between the centers of consecutive scan lines) is between 1.7 m and 2.3 m.

In a femtosecond ophthalmic laser system which employs a high frequency resonant scanner to produce a laser scanline and XY and Z scanners to move the scanline in a patient's eye to perform eye surgery, a beam blocking member is placed near an internal focus plane of the optical system to block some of the beam paths to truncate the laser scanline at the two ends. This eliminates the closely spaced or overlapping laser focus spots near the ends of the scanline. The beam blocking member has a plate shape with one or more apertures of different shapes or sizes, and is movable in the transverse direction to different positions to block different amounts of the scanline.