Charts to rapidly estimate temperature following laser irradiation

A recurring problem in laser applications is estimating the thermal response of target tissues to laser irra- diation. This typically involves using an optical model to determine the distribution of absorbed laser energy and then using a thermal model to establish the temperature during and after laser irradiation. To avoid such modelling and yet allow one to obtain fast, accurate estimates of temperature, a series of charts for laser irradia- tion of semi-inflnite homogeneous media with adiabatic boundaries is presented. These charts were created using analytic solutions of the temperature for absorbing-only media with simple pulsed source geometries. Through the use of non-dimensional parameters, these charts allow one to make rapid estimates of the spatial and temporal thermal distributions following laser irradiation for arbitrary pulse durations and absorption coe-cients.