Ablation of human tissue with an infrared laser tuned to the amide II band of proteins has proven to be especially efficient, with reduced collateral damage. In order to check for a specific non-thermal effect at this wavelength, we have irradiated pig tissues at different frequencies, corresponding to the amide I, amide II and phosphate ones, with a free-electron laser, and analyzed the damaged area using an infrared microspectrometer. The observation of a relative weakening of the relative peak intensity of the amide II band when irradiation has been tuned into its resonant frequency tends to demonstrate that the ablation process should be enhanced due to a resonant denaturation of structural proteins.

Date Published: 25 October 1999
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 3775, Accelerator-based Sources of Infrared and Spectroscopic Applications, (25 October 1999); doi: 10.1117/12.366635

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3775:
Accelerator-based Sources of Infrared and Spectroscopic Applications
G. Lawrence Carr; Paul Dumas, Editor(s)