Aiming Beam and Coaxial Laser Beam

An aiming beam is a laser beam (or any other light source) which is used as a light for guiding. The aiming beam is most often a coaxial He-Ne laser beam. Such aiming beams are used to perform operations that use a laser and fiber optic system in conjunction with each other.

Different types of lasers require different beam aiming systems. In the case of Holmium and the Nd:YAG, a HeNe aiming beam is combined with the Nd:YAG beam at the source for producing a coincident beam. The argon and KTP lasers fall into the visible lasers category and hence can be heavily attenuated in order to produce a visible aiming beam for performing surgery.

Beam Delivery Systems

The beam delivery systems are required for biomedical laser systems. These systems incorporate a coaxial aiming beam (from a He-Ne laser)of powers up to 100 W. These beam delivery systems may consist of two beam-guiding methods, one uses flexible fused silica another uses an articulated arm having beam-guiding mirrors.

References

• Laser Safety Training Module – Southern Illinois University
• Glossary of Laser terms – Purdue University
• A Medical Robotic System for Laser Phonomicrosurgery - eBook
• Clinical Engineering – Biomedical Lasers - eBook