In reviewing an article about proposed new uses for the femtosecond laser, I came across a term that I had not heard of before – laser photolysis. It turns out that laser photolysis with a femtosecond laser is being evaluated to photobleach human lenses and thus postpone the need for cataract surgery.

Dr. Line Kessel and her colleagues in Denmark have tested a technique of scanning the output of a femtosecond laser across human lenses and brought back transparency through photobleaching without damage to the lenses, thereby postponing the need for cataract surgery by from 3 to 7 years. This work was done on donated human lenses from the Cornea Bank NORI in Amsterdam but, if this process becomes feasible for living lenses, the consequences are enormous.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. First take a look at Dr.Joseph Colin’s writeup on new applications for femtosecond lasers that appeared in OSN Europe, and then read my treatise on Laser Photolysis.

The link is: http://tinyurl.com/photolysis ^[1]