Cold laser microsurgery of the retina with a syringe guided 193 nm excimer laser

This paper presents a methodology for guiding a radiation of ArF excimer laser in a liquid surrounding and confining it to the spots that can be varied in dimension from submicron diameters to tens and hundreds of microns. Our approach is to confine and guide the excimer laser with variable diameter tapered tubes, thus opening the possibility of applying this laser in vitro-retinal surgery using endo laser techniques. Presently because of a lack of methods to guide the 193nm ArF radiation in liquid this laser is used exclusively in ophthalmology in topical applications such as in corneal sculpturing. Our methodology resolves this problem in a unique way and with impressive results. Specifically, we show that with this syringe needle guided excimer laser it is possible to accurately remove retinal tissue without any detectable damage to surrounding cells. Applications of this new technology in retinal surgery are discussed.