NEW PAPER EXPLAINS CALIBRATION SERVICE FOR EXCIMER LASERS.Last year, NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC, www.nist.gov) The standards-defining agency of the U.S. government, formerly the National Bureau of Standards. It is one of three agencies that fall under the Technology Administration (www.technology. announced it had developed a new service to calibrate argon-fluoride excimer lasers for power and energy (go to the NIST Update archives under "News" on the NIST World Wide Web site--www.nist.gov--and click on the Oct. 12, 1999, issue). ArF lasers, which produce pulsed, ultraviolet radiation at a wavelength of 193 nanometers, are commonly used to correct vision impairments. These corneal sculpting techniques are known as photorefractive keratectomy and in situ keratomileusis keratomileusis /ker·a·to·mi·leu·sis/ (ker?ah-to-mi-loo´sis) keratoplasty in which a slice of the patient's cornea is removed, shaped to the desired curvature, and then sutured back on the remaining cornea to correct optical error. (PRK PRK photorefractive keratectomy. Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) A procedure that uses an excimer laser to make modifications to the cornea and permanently correct myopia. and LASIK LASIK laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis. LA·SIK n. Eye surgery in which the surface of the cornea is reshaped using a laser, performed to correct certain refractive disorders such as myopia. respectively). The lasers also are used in the computer industry for high-resolution photolithography to manufacture faster microprocessors and larger memory chips. A new technical paper from NIST goes into detail on the design of the 193 nm primary standard, complete with schematics and graphs. At the present time, NIST is the only national laboratory in the world to offer excimer laser power and energy calibration services. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion