Anagrafe della ricerca

The age-related growth of ocular diseases causing blindness (macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy) will create a very challenging scenario for ophthalmologist, since by 2050 1/4 of the population in the western countries will be over 65 and for those ages the prevalence of visual impairment and blindness increases by three times. These pathologies can be effectively treated with 577 nm yellow laser light, a procedure that is rapidly gaining consensus because proved to be free of post-intervention complications and of visual loss. Available lasers generate yellow beams through inefficient approaches, mainly by frequency doubling infrared lasers, while direct emission from fiber lasers – the favored high-power technology for infrared – would bring many advantages such as compactness, reliability, costs, and intrinsic fiber beam delivery, all aspects that would widen the applicability both in terms of new treatments and of easiness of access. Nevertheless, such an option has not been exploited so far because of the lack of robust active fibers for visible emission and of efficient pump sources. Yellow-FLiCkEr overcomes these limitations by developing a specialty optical fiber, new blue pump modules, and all the other optical components for a yellow fiber laser cavity. The project will build a demonstrator specific for ophthalmology and test it up to preclinical studies, but the flexibility of the proposed approach will also enable future uses outside the medical field, further increasing the impact of the results. In particular, Yellow-FLiCkEr laser will allow retinal surgeries with both free-space and fiber-guided beams; in the latter case it will allow using for the first time in ophthalmology the beam delivery fiber also for sensing. Yellow-FLiCkEr introduces many innovations beyond the state of the art: a fiber based on a new glass host, optimized for high-power emission in the visible; compact multi-emitter high-power blue pump modules; a direct emission high-power visible fiber laser; a new smart fiber applicator that integrates the laser delivery and sensing capabilities for the real-time monitoring of the treatment process. The design to the preclinical validation of the demonstrator within the project duration is a hard challenge, made possible by the complementary skills of the partners, reinforced by their already long cooperation tradition. UNIPR is in charge of the fiber laser design and of the laser preliminary characterizations, while POLIMI of the glass host design and synthesis; POLITO is responsible for the fiber drawing and the system integration, including the assembly of the pump modules and the fabrication of the custom components, such as the beam reflectors and the smart fiber applicator; UNIMORE is the end-user and as such sets the specification to be satisfied by the laser system and is in charge of the tests on ex- and in-vivo specimens.