Toward High-Speed Ultrafast Laser Surgery: Optimizing Bone Ablation Performance in Miniaturized Systems

International audience ; Ultrafast laser surgery presents a promising alternative to conventional surgical tools in procedures where high precision and thermal safety are paramount. However, clinical translation has been limited by low ablation speeds and challenges in system integration. In this work, we investigate the optimization of bone ablation performance using a compact ultrafast laser delivery benchtop system based on Kagome hollow-core fiber and piezo-enabled beam scanning. We systematically evaluate the influence of spot size, fluence, and pulse overlap on ablation efficiency. Our results reveal a strong dependence of threshold fluence on the number of overlapping pulses, with smaller spot sizes yielding higher ablation efficiencies. Ablation rates >20 mm 3 /min has been achieved with 1 ps laser pulse at 11.8 W, highlighting a clear pathway toward achieving the clinically required rate of 1 mm 3 /s. Additionally, we report the first successful submerged ultrafast ablation of hard tissue using picosecond pulses and present initial thermal-profiling data to assess heat accumulation during high-power high-repetition rate ablation. Together, these findings provide key design considerations for the development of clinically viable, miniaturized ultrafast laser bone-surgery probes.