Bessel light beam for a surgical laser focusing telescope-a novel approach.

As the demand for CO[Formula: see text] laser surgeries continues to grow, the quality of their main instrument, the laser micromanipulator, becomes increasingly important. However, in many surgery systems, a large ratio of the laser power is wasted due to the reflection from the mirror of a telescopic system, like a Cassegrain telescope, back to the laser side, which not only decreases the system's efficiency but can also damage the system itself. In this article, we introduce a new design of the micromanipulator telescope for CO[Formula: see text] laser surgery, which employs a Bessel beam to improve the system efficiency.

Pyrometry with flexible infrared fibers for temperature-controlled laser surgery.

Pyrometry is widely used in science, medicine, and industry to measure the surface temperature of objects in a non-contact way. IR fibers are an ideal solution for the flexible delivery of thermal radiation emitted from objects inside a complex structure like internal organs inside the human body. Silver halide polycrystalline infrared fibers (PIR) are transparent in a spectral range of 3 - 18 µm, matching perfectly with the spectra of black body radiation for temperatures ranging from 20°C to 200°C.

Evaluation of Raman spectroscopic macro raster scans of native cervical cone biopsies using histopathological mapping.

Raman spectroscopy based discrimination of cervical precancer and normal tissue has been shown previously in vivo with fiber probe based measurements of colposcopically selected sites. With a view to developing in vivo large area imaging, macro raster scans of native cervical cone biopsies with an average of 200 spectra per sample are implemented (n=16). The diagnostic performance is evaluated using histopathological mapping of the cervix surface.

Stable and tunable single frequency Nd:GSAG laser around 943 nm.

Stable single frequency output around 943 nm was obtained from a quasi-continuous wave (qcw) diode-pumped, Q-switched Nd:GSAG laser. The Q-switched Nd:GSAG laser was injection seeded with a single mode laser diode. Its frequency was stabilized by an active-control loop specially designed for a strong qcw pump.

The rate of Q(x)→Q(y) relaxation in bacteriochlorophylls of reaction centers from Rhodobacter sphaeroides determined by kinetics of the ultrafast carotenoid bandshift.

Transient absorption changes induced by excitation of isolated reaction centers (RCs) from Rhodobacter sphaeroides with 600nm laser pulses of 20fs (full width at half maximum) were monitored in the wavelength region of 420-560nm. The spectral features of the spectrum obtained are characteristic for an electrochromic band shift of the single carotenoid (Car) molecule spheroidene, which is an integral constituent of these RCs. This effect is assigned to an electrochromic bandshift of Car due to the local electric field of the dipole moment formed by electronic excitation of bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) molecule(s) in the neighborhood of Car.

Functional domain size in aggregates of light-harvesting complex II and thylakoid membranes.

The functional domain size for efficient excited singlet state quenching was studied in artificial aggregates of the main light-harvesting complex II (LHCIIb) from spinach and in native thylakoid membranes by picosecond time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy and quantum yield measurements. The domain size was estimated from the efficiency of added exogenous singlet excitation quenchers-phenyl-p-benzoquinone (PPQ) and dinitrobenzene (DNB). The mean fluorescence lifetimes τ(av) were quantified for a range of quencher concentrations.

Operation of a Raman laser in bulk silicon.

A Raman laser based on a bulk silicon single crystal with 1.127 μm emission wavelength is demonstrated. The Si crystal with 30 mm length was placed into an external cavity and pumped by a Q-switched Nd:YAG master oscillator power amplifier system.

Excitation energy transfer in intact cells and in the phycobiliprotein antennae of the chlorophyll d containing cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina.

The cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina is unique because it mainly contains Chlorophyll d (Chl d) in the core complexes of PS I and PS II instead of the usually dominant Chl a. Furthermore, its light harvesting system has a structure also different from other cyanobacteria. It has both, a membrane-internal chlorophyll containing antenna and a membrane-external phycobiliprotein (PBP) complex.

Quantitative Raman spectroscopy in turbid media.

Intrinsic Raman spectra of biological tissue are distorted by the influences of tissue absorption and scattering, which significantly challenge signal quantification. A combined Raman and spatially resolved reflectance setup is introduced to measure the absorption coefficient micro(a) and the reduced scattering coefficient micro(s) (') of the tissue, together with the Raman signals. The influence of micro(a) and micro(s) (') on the resonance Raman signal of beta-carotene is measured at 1524 cm(-1) by tissue phantom measurements and Monte Carlo simulations for micro(a)=0.

Single frequency operation of a tunable injection-seeded Nd:GSAG Q-switched laser around 942nm.

Single frequency operation of a diode-pumped tunable injection-seeded Nd:GSAG Q-switched laser around 942nm was demonstrated. With a three-mirror ring cavity, the single frequency laser pulse with output energy of 13.2mJ was obtained at a repetition rate of 10Hz.

Femtosecond spectroscopy of native and carotenoidless purple-bacterial LH2 clarifies functions of carotenoids.

EET between the two circular bacteriochlorophyll compartments B800 and B850 in native (containing the carotenoid rhodopin) and carotenoidless LH2 isolated from the photosynthetic purple sulfur bacterium Allochromatium minutissimum was investigated by femtosecond time-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy. Both samples were excited with 120-fs laser pulses at 800 nm, and spectral evolution was followed in the 720-955 nm range at different delay times. No dependence of transient absorption in the B800 band on the presence of the carotenoid rhodopin was found.

Excitation energy transfer from phycobiliprotein to chlorophyll d in intact cells of Acaryochloris marina studied by time- and wavelength-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy.

The fluorescence decay spectra and the excitation energy transfer from the phycobiliproteins (PBP) to the chlorophyll-antennae of intact cells of the chlorophyll (Chl) d-dominated cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina were investigated at 298 and 77 K by time- and wavelength-correlated single photon counting fluorescence spectroscopy. At 298 K it was found that (i) the fluorescence dynamics in A. marina is characterized by two emission peaks located at about 650 and 725 nm, (ii) the intensity of the 650 nm fluorescence depends strongly on the excitation wavelength, being high upon excitation of phycobiliprotein (PBP) at 632 nm but virtually absent upon excitation of chlorophyll at 430 nm, (iii) the 650 nm fluorescence band decayed predominantly with a lifetime of 70 +/- 20 ps, (iv) the 725 nm fluorescence, which was observed independent of the excitation wavelength, can be described by a three-exponential decay kinetics with lifetimes depending on the open or the closed state (F(0) or F(m)) of the reaction centre of Photosystem II (PS II).

Highly efficient 1.3-microm second-stokes PbWO4 Raman laser.

A second-Stokes Raman laser based on PbWO4 with a 1.316-microm wavelength pumped by an approximately 120-ps Nd:YAG laser at 1.06415 microm scattered at 901 cm(-1) phonon was developed.