Fiber Lasers and Their Medical Applications

Abstract

Advancing of photonics, aided with fruitful and abundant experimental and theoretical studies, over the last four decades has brought about the invention of a large variety of lasers. Among them one of the most popular types is a fiber laser, which is a variation of the standard solid-state laser, with the medium being a clad fiber waveguide structure and different dopants inside core serve as a gain media. They were derived from erbiumdoped fiber amplifiers, which are still important component for telecommunications. Since discovery, fiber laser has become a natural choice for many uses, primarily because of the physical characteristics of fiber waveguide structure. Their rapid progress may show how excellent they really are. Although fiber lasers are today widely used in various research and industrial areas, one of the most meaningful applications of fiber laser technology has been through its use in medicine. A wide variety of wavelengths generated by fiber lasers as well as the diversity of physical mechanisms employed in pulse generation also additionally underpins the flexibility of fiber laser technology. This study is devoted to background technology of fiber lasers in the light of medical applications. Basic physics and theories of optical fibers and their important properties are introduced.