16 June 2008

£8m to develop new lasers

The University of Dundee is leading a team of 18 European partners that have been granted 10.1m EUR (approx £8m) to develop a new generation of biomedical lasers.

The new lasers will be much smaller and more efficient than current lasers, which are not portable and are heavy on energy consumption. The new lasers will be designed for use in microscopy and nanosurgery, where high precision cutting, imaging and treatment therapies will be made possible.

The new lasers will mean that surgeons and life scientists will have access to much higher performance and lower cost lasers than are currently available and will open up exciting new application areas for lasers in biomedicine.

The four year project funded by the European Commission is being lead by Dundee and includes partnerships with M-Squared Lasers in Glasgow and Sheffield University. The impressive list of collaborating European partners include Phillips, Alcatel Thales and The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Five new research posts will be created in Dundee with the money and nearly 100 man years of effort will be directed towards the world class research throughout the partnership.

Prof Edik Rafailov, of the University of Dundee, says "This project will revolutionise the use of lasers in the biomedical field, providing both practitioners and researchers with pocket sized ultra high performance lasers at a substantially lower cost which will make their widespread use affordable."

Dr Graeme Malcolm, Chief Executive Office of M-Squared Lasers Ltd, echoed Prof Rafailov's comments and said "A step change improvement in the cost, size and robustness of ultrafast lasers is needed before they can benefit biomedical applications fully. Technologies developed by FAST-DOT will enable these lasers to migrate from the bench-top to hospitals and laboratories. We're looking forward to contributing to that transition, and developing next-generation, workhorse systems that bring new capabilities to these applications."

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Anna Day
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