Performance of a Broadband Free-Electron Laser and Preliminary Studies on Its Application to Biology and Medicine

Recent performance improvements in the free-electron laser (FEL) have allowed it to operate at a level suitable for most applications in laser medicine. A brief description of the operation of a free-electron laser will be presented. The performance desired in a medical FEL will be described and the performance to date of the Mark III mid-infrared to visible FEL at Stanford University will be summarized. A series of experiments, accessing over 400 hours of FEL beam time, have been performed at Stanford as part of the University of Utah Laser Institute medical FEL program using the Mark III for both in vitro and in vivo studies of laser tissue interactions and materials science studies in semiconductor materials. Future improvements to the laser with the purpose of making it suitable for biomedical research and applications will be described.