Pulsed laser welding parameters

Laser welding provides improved healing along with greater ease and speed compared with suture tissue joining. Because of the photothermal mechanism, a certain amount of heat damage accompanies laser welding. Because of the CW, hand-held delivery to a visually determined end-point, the margin between a weak, underexposed weld and a large zone of tissue destruction is narrow (i.e. narrow therapeutic index). This CW exposure produces unwanted collateral thermal injury even in the case where the weld site itself is exposed ideally. We studied a series of pulsed laser parameters in welding a rat skin model in vitro to determine 1) if comparable weld strength could be obtained to CW welding parameters; 2) if thermal injury could, in fact, be spatially confined and 3) what the appropriate pulse width and interval is to achieve this goal