A system is provided that furnishes expert procedural guidance based upon patient-specific data gained from surgical instruments incorporating sensors on the instrument's working surface, one or more reference sensors placed about the patient, sensors implanted before, during or after the procedure, the patient's personal medical history, and patient status monitoring equipment. Embodiments include a system having a surgical instrument with a sensor for generating a signal indicative of a property of a subject tissue of the patient, which signal is converted into a current dataset and stored. A processor compares the current dataset with other previously stored datasets, and uses the comparison to assess a physical condition of the subject tissue and/or to guide a procedure being performed on the tissue.

Surgical instruments with sensors for detecting tissue properties, and systems using such instruments

Rayleigh–Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instability induced flow, turbulence, and mixing. II

In the 2015 review paper 'Petawatt Class Lasers Worldwide' a comprehensive overview of the current status of highpower facilities of >200 TW was presented. This was largely based on facility specifications, with some description of their uses, for instance in fundamental ultra-high-intensity interactions, secondary source generation, and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). With the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to Professors Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou for the development of the technique of chirped pulse amplification (CPA), which made these lasers possible, we celebrate by providing a comprehensive update of the current status of ultra-high-power lasers and demonstrate how the technology has developed. We are now in the era of multi-petawatt facilities coming online, with 100 PW lasers being proposed and even under construction. In addition to this there is a pull towards development of industrial and multidisciplinary applications, which demands much higher repetition rates, delivering high-average powers with higher efficiencies and the use of alternative wavelengths: mid-IR facilities. So apart from a comprehensive update of the current global status, we want to look at what technologies are to be deployed to get to these new regimes, and some of the critical issues facing their development.

/pdf/petawatt-and-exawatt-class-lasers-worldwide-10zgtun6jp.pdf

Petawatt and exawatt class lasers worldwide

The direct-drive, laser-based approach to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is reviewed from its inception following the demonstration of the first laser to its implementation on the present generation of high-power lasers. The review focuses on the evolution of scientific understanding gained from target-physics experiments in many areas, identifying problems that were demonstrated and the solutions implemented. The review starts with the basic understanding of laser–plasma interactions that was obtained before the declassification of laser-induced compression in the early 1970s and continues with the compression experiments using infrared lasers in the late 1970s that produced thermonuclear neutrons. The problem of suprathermal electrons and the target preheat that they caused, associated with the infrared laser wavelength, led to lasers being built after 1980 to operate at shorter wavelengths, especially 0.35 μm—the third harmonic of the Nd:glass laser—and 0.248 μm (the KrF gas laser). The main physics areas relevant to direct drive are reviewed. The primary absorption mechanism at short wavelengths is classical inverse bremsstrahlung. Nonuniformities imprinted on the target by laser irradiation have been addressed by the development of a number of beam-smoothing techniques and imprint-mitigation strategies. The effects of hydrodynamic instabilities are mitigated by a combination of imprint reduction and target designs that minimize the instability growth rates. Several coronal plasma physics processes are reviewed. The two-plasmon–decay instability, stimulated Brillouin scattering (together with cross-beam energy transfer), and (possibly) stimulated Raman scattering are identified as potential concerns, placing constraints on the laser intensities used in target designs, while other processes (self-focusing and filamentation, the parametric decay instability, and magnetic fields), once considered important, are now of lesser concern for mainline direct-drive target concepts. Filamentation is largely suppressed by beam smoothing. Thermal transport modeling, important to the interpretation of experiments and to target design, has been found to be nonlocal in nature. Advances in shock timing and equation-of-state measurements relevant to direct-drive ICF are reported. Room-temperature implosions have provided an increased understanding of the importance of stability and uniformity. The evolution of cryogenic implosion capabilities, leading to an extensive series carried out on the 60-beam OMEGA laser [Boehly et al., Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)], is reviewed together with major advances in cryogenic target formation. A polar-drive concept has been developed that will enable direct-drive–ignition experiments to be performed on the National Ignition Facility [Haynam et al., Appl. Opt. 46(16), 3276 (2007)]. The advantages offered by the alternative approaches of fast ignition and shock ignition and the issues associated with these concepts are described. The lessons learned from target-physics and implosion experiments are taken into account in ignition and high-gain target designs for laser wavelengths of 1/3 μm and 1/4 μm. Substantial advances in direct-drive inertial fusion reactor concepts are reviewed. Overall, the progress in scientific understanding over the past five decades has been enormous, to the point that inertial fusion energy using direct drive shows significant promise as a future environmentally attractive energy source.

Direct-drive inertial confinement fusion: A review

After a brief examination of known insulating laser crystals and the stimulated emission channels of their generating activator ions, this article reviews recent advances in the development of novel lasing crystals and ceramics, as well as inorganic and organic nonlinear-laser crystals for χ(3) and cascaded χ(3) ↔ χ(2) frequency converters Several new modern attractive technologies in the physics and techniques of crystalline lasers are also discussed

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/lpor.200710008

Laser crystals and ceramics: recent advances

A device is described that can be used by surgeons to provide quick and accurate face-lifting maneuvers that minimize the amount of tissue that has to be removed. The device comprised of a hollow undermining shaft with specially designed tip that can safely separate tissue planes and lyse fibrous tissue. Thermal radiation can be delivered down the shaft to heat and cause tissue contraction. The device can also include a temperature sensor that can be used to control the thermal radiation. Optionally, the device can also use ultrasound or electro surgical energy to improve tissue lysing.

Thermal radiation facelift device

The amplification of weak 80–240-mJ, 4-ns laser pulses with a gain of 0.035–0.045 cm-1 is studied. The maximum energy of 3.3 kJ is obtained for 4-ns pulses.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1070/QE2005v035n04ABEH003417/pdf

Channel of a high-power laser fusion Luch facility emitting 3.3-kJ, and 4-ns pulses

Gain coefficients at transverse SRS in the particular samples of KDP and KD*P crystals, grown following the traditional and rapid-growth technology have been determined.

Transverse SRS in KDP and KD*P crystals

The experiments to study the indirect drive targets' dynamics in a highly symmetrical X-radiation field were performed on the ISKRA-5 facility. This paper covered the results of experiments with the targets in the form of a Cu spherical hohlraum, the internal surface of which is coated with Au, with six holes for laser radiation input. In the center of the aforementioned hohlraum, a glass capsule filled with D–T gas was placed. In several experiments, the central capsule was coated with an ablator made of plastic with a different thickness. This allowed us to perform a series of experiments in which the different compression degree of D–T fuel was achieved. The analyses of experimental results revealed good agreement between the latter and the spherically symmetrical hydrodynamic calculations.

Compression and heating of indirectly driven spherical fusion targets on the ISKRA-5 facility

An investigation was made of the dependence of the energy and divergence of laser radiation on the length of a plane-parallel resonator. The results were in agreement with estimates based on relationships derived in the geometric-optics framework. An analysis was made of the possibility of obtaining highly directional radiation from a laser with a nonresonant feedback and parameters of this radiation were measured. It was found that the experimentally achieved divergence was close to the "amplifier divergence" ( θ~2la n≈θamp ) and the energy losses were still relatively low.

Gennady G. Kochemasov

Papers

Thermal radiation facelift device

Channel of a high-power laser fusion Luch facility emitting 3.3-kJ, and 4-ns pulses

Transverse SRS in KDP and KD*P crystals

Compression and heating of indirectly driven spherical fusion targets on the ISKRA-5 facility

Investigation of the divergence of radiation emitted by a photodissociation laser with an inhomogeneous active medium