Abstract

Near-infrared laser pulses of a compact 80-MHz femtosecond laser source at 800 nm, a mean power of 15–100 mW, 170-fs pulse width, and millisecond beam dwell times at the target have been used for multiphoton-mediated nanoprocessing of human chromosomes. By focusing of the laser beam with high-numerical-aperture objectives of a scanning microscope to diffraction-limited spots and with light intensities of terawatts per cubic centimeter, precise submicrometer holes and cuts in human chromosomes have been processed by single-point exposure and line scans. A minimum FWHM cut size of $\sim 100 \mathrm{nm}$ during a partial dissection of chromosome 1, which is below the diffraction-limited spot size, and a minimum material removal of $\sim 0.003 \mu {\mathrm{m}}^3$ were determined by a scanning-force microscope. The plasma-induced ablated material corresponds to $\sim 1/400$ of the chromosome 1 volume and to $\sim 65\times {10}^3$ base pairs of chromosomal DNA. A complete dissection could be performed with FWHM cut sizes below 200 nm. High-repetition-frequency femtosecond lasers at low mean power in combination with high-numerical-aperture focusing optics appear therefore as appropriate noncontact tools for nanoprocessing of bulk and (or) surfaces of transparent materials such as chromosomes. In particular, the noninvasive inactivation of certain genomic regions on single chromosomes within living cells becomes possible.

© 2001 Optical Society of America

Technique of laser chromosome welding for chromosome repair and artificial chromosome creation

Yao-Xiong Huang, Lin Li, Liu Yang, and Yi Zhang
Biomed. Opt. Express 9(4) 1783-1794 (2018)

Cellular response to near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses in two-photon microscopes

K. König, P. T. C. So, W. W. Mantulin, and E. Gratton
Opt. Lett. 22(2) 135-136 (1997)

Pulse-length dependence of cellular response to intense near-infrared laser pulses in multiphoton microscopes

K. König, T. W. Becker, P. Fischer, I. Riemann, and K.-J. Halbhuber
Opt. Lett. 24(2) 113-115 (1999)

Intratissue surgery with 80 MHz nanojoule femtosecond laser pulses in the near infrared

Karsten König, Oliver Krauss, and Iris Riemann
Opt. Express 10(3) 171-176 (2002)

Targeted transfection of stem cells with sub-20 femtosecond laser pulses

Aisada Uchugonova, Karsten König, Rainer Bueckle, Andreas Isemann, and Gabriel Tempea
Opt. Express 16(13) 9357-9364 (2008)