Abstract
A laser-induced liquid jet system for surgery and other medical applications is fabricated by using a
hollow optical fiber that transmits Er:YAG laser light for liquid jet generation. Since water has an
extremely high absorption coefficient at the wavelength of Er:YAG laser light (λ = 2.94 μm),highpressure
liquid jet is produced by a relatively low laser power. To evaluate the system performance for
medical applications, we experimentally investigated the mechanism of bubble generation in the water
and improved the system to obtain high jet pressure. In addition, we tried to produce shock wave and
examined the relations between shock wave pressure and system configuration. We showed the
feasibility of the system for both of soft and hard tissue processing.
