Temperature measurement during Er:YAG laser irradiation to bone scaffold

Abstract

It is expected that the removal operation of the calcified heart valve will be simpler if we use lasers in substitution for drills. In this study, surface temperature of bone scaffold including hydroxyapatite during pulsed Er:YAG laser irradiation was measured using infrared radiation pyrometer as fundamental experiment. As a result, the surface temperature during laser irradiation became more than 60°C that is a glass transition point of the polylactic acid. Then, polylactic acid softened. The temperature is associated with the removal volume. Additionally, we can suppress the heat storage to the sample by regulation the pulse interval of the laser.