LIE LIE10508 2010/3/19 11:30 page 175 #1

Lasers in Eng., Vol. 19, pp. 175179 2010 Old City Publishing, Inc.
Reprints available directly from the publisher Published by license under the OCP Science imprint,
Photocopying permitted by license only a member of the Old City Publishing Group
On the Unied Description of the Attosecond
Laser PulseTissue Interaction
J. Marciak-Kozlowska
1
and M. Kozlowski
2,
1
Institute of Electron Technology, Warsaw, Poland
2
Physics Department Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland
The ultra-short laser pulse interaction with tissue is investigated. The
hyperbolic diffusion thermal equation is developed and solved. It is shown
that the femto- and attosecond laser pulses generate a thermal wave with
a speed of the order of 10
3
m/s.
Keywords: Tissue, thermal wave, hyperbolic diffusion.
1 INTRODUCTION
Basically, a laser pulse can interact with biological tissue in ve ways:
(a) the electromechanical mode, (b) ablation, (c) photothermal (congula-
tive and vaporising) processes, (d) photochemical (photodynamic) reaction,
(e) biostimulation and wound heating.
In this paper we shall study in detail the photothermal processes. In the
rst approximation the tissue is the semiconductor and the electromagnetic
eld of the laser pulse generates the charge transport and mass and heat in the
tissue. These transport phenomena to a rst approximation can be described
as diffusion processes [1].
It is well known that the application of the Fourier law to the analysis of
the diffusion is limited to the case where the pulse duration is much longer
than the relaxation time for transport processes. In Table 1, the characteristic
thermal relaxation times for a laser pulsetissue interaction are presented.
The contemporary femtosecond and attosecond lasers open the new pos-
sibility for a study of the lasertissue interaction. As both the duration of the
pulses: 1 fs and 1 as are much shorter than the relaxation times, Table 1, the
Fourier law can not be valid.

Corresponding author: E-mail: miroslawkozlowski@aster.pl

175
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176 J. Marciak-Kozlowska and M. Kozlowski
Target Size Relaxation time
Melanosome 1 m 1.7 s
Erythrocyte 10 m 170 s
Microvessel 100 m 17 ms
Vessel 1000 m 1.7 s
TABLE 1
Thermal relaxation time of common laser targets [1].
As was shown in monograph [2] for t (pulse duration) (relaxation
time) the master equation for the temperature eld is the hyperbolic diffusion
equation, Heaviside equation:

2
T
t
2
+
T
t
= D
T
T, (1)
where T ( r, t ) is the temperature eld, is the relaxation time and D
T
is the
thermal diffusion coefcient.
For hypebolic diffusion in the eld of the potential V( r) the hyperbolic
diffusion has the form [2]:

2
T
t
2
+
T
t
+
2V
Dm
T = D
2
T. (2)
In the general case Eq. (2) is the hyperbolic non-linear partial equation
which describes the transport of heat in laserpulsetissue interaction. Eq. (2)
for = 0 describes the diffusion processes. On the other hand for
Eq. (2) is the master equation for the thermal wave:

2
T
t
2
+
2V
Dm
T = D
2
T ( r, t ). (3)
From the above we conclude that Eq. (2) presents the unical description of
thermal processes generated in the tissue: diffusion and wave model.
In the case of the source term
1
( r, t ) equation (2) has the form

2
T
t
2
+
T
t
+
2V
Dm
T = D
2
T +
1
( r, t ). (4)
or

2
T
t
2
+
1

T
t
=
D

2
T
2V
Dm
T +

1
( r, t )

. (5)
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On the Unied Description of the Attosecond Laser PulseTissue Interaction 177
Let us introduce the abbreviation
1

= k;
D

= a
2
;

2V
Dm
= b;

1
( r, t )

= ( r, t ).
(6)
Considering formulae (6) Eq. (5) can be written as

2
T
t
2
+k
T
t
= a
2

2
T +bT ( r, t ) +( r, t ). (7)
2 SOLUTION OF ONE DIMENSIONALHYPERBOLIC DIFFUSION
WITH SOURCE TERM (x, t)
In the following we obtain the solution of Eq. (7) for a constant D and . To
that aim let us consider the Cauchy problem:
Domain: < x < .
Initial conditions are prescribed:
T (x, 0) = f (x)
T
x
(x, 0) = g(x).
(8)
Solution for b +
1
4
k
2
= c
2
> 0 [3]:
T (x, t ) =
1
2
exp
_

1
2
kt
__
x+at
xat
I
1
_
c
_
t
2
(x )
2
/a
2
_
_
t
2
(x )
2
/a
2
f ()d
+
1
2a
exp
_

1
2
kt
__
x+at
xat
I
0
_
c
_
t
2
(x )
2
/a
2
_

_
g() +
1
2
kf ()
_
d
+
1
2a
_
t
0
_
x+a(t +)
x(t )
exp
_

1
2
k (t )
_
I
0

_
c
_
(t )
2
(x )
2
/a
2
_
(, )dd
+
1
2
exp
_

1
2
kt
_
[f (x at) +f (x +at)]. (9)
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178 J. Marciak-Kozlowska and M. Kozlowski
Solution for b +
1
4
k
2
= c
2
< 0 [3]:
T (x, t ) =
1
2
exp
_

1
2
kt
_
[f (x at) +f (x +at)]

ct
2a
exp
_

1
2
kt
__
x+at
xat
J
1
_
c
_
t
2
(x )
2
/a
2
_
_
t
2
(x )
2
/a
2
f ()d
+
1
2a
exp
_

1
2
kt
__
x+at
xat
J
0
_
c
_
t
2
(x )
2
/a
2
_

_
g() +
1
2
kf ()
_
d
+
1
2a
_
t
0
_
x+a(t +)
xa(t )
exp
_

1
2
k (t )
_
J
0

_
c
_
(t )
2
(x )
2
/a
2
_
(, )dd. (10)
Formulae (9) and (10) describe the propagation of the thermal disturbance
f (x vt) with velocity
= a =
_
D/. (11)
Considering that the diffusion coefcient D for haemoglobin in water is of
the order of 10
11
m
2
/s and the relaxation time 170 s [3] the speed of the
thermal wave for haemoglobin is of the order of
v 10
3
m/s (12)
From equations (10)(12) we conclude that in tissue ultra-short laser pulses
generate the thermal wave with a speed of the order 10
3
m/s. The mean free
path for the thermal wave in haemoglobin is of the order of
= 10
7
m 10
1
m.
From medical points of view the application of ultra-short laser pulses
offers very good localisation of the thermal energy. In tissue radiated by ultra-
short laser pulses the thermal hot spot with radius of the order of 0.1 m
can be generated.
3 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper the newequation for thermal phenomena in tissue is proposed and
solved. It was shown that for laser pulse duration < relaxation time in tissue
the thermal wave can be generated with a speed of the order of 10
3
m/s.
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On the Unied Description of the Attosecond Laser PulseTissue Interaction 179
REFERENCES
[1] Peng Q. et al., Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 056701.
[2] Kozlowski M. and Marciak-Kozlowska J. Thermal Processes UsingAttosecond Laser Pulses,
Springer, USA, 2006.
[3] Polyanin A. D., Handbook of Linear Partial Differential Equations for Engineers and
Scientists, Chapman and Hall/CRC, London, 2005.
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