{"doi":"10.1364/boe.582102","title":"Sub-50-femtosecond gain-managed amplified pulses enhance nonlinear ablation efficiency","abstract":"Nonlinear femtosecond (fs) laser ablation enables highly localized energy deposition for cell microsurgery. Conventional systems operate at either low (∼1 kHz, amplified µJ pulse energy) or high (∼80 MHz, unamplified low nJ) repetition rates, but intermediate rates with amplified pulse energy offer a promising balance of ablation speed and thermal control. We custom-built a low-cost, 32 MHz femtosecond fiber laser system with gain-managed nonlinear amplification, boosting pulse energy from 5 to 90 nJ while compressing pulse duration to 46 fs. In this intermediate-repetition-rate regime, the use of sub-50-fs pulses enhances ablation efficiency by strengthening multiphoton absorption and lowering the effective ablation threshold, while also leveraging multi-pulse incubation effects that promote cumulative energy deposition at reduced per-pulse energies. Compared to 200-500 fs pulses typically used for ablation, shorter durations double ablation efficiency in silicon and yield a ∼10× increase in cell membrane damage. In 3D tumor models, this approach enables targeted subsurface ablation up to 400 µm depth with 6 nJ pulse energy. These results inform the design of next-generation femtosecond laser systems for microsurgery.","journal":"Biomedical Optics Express","year":2025,"id":549196,"datarank":0.10397207708399181,"base_score":0.6931471805599453,"endowment":0.6931471805599453,"self_citation_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":1,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9603,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"figshare":["10.6084/m9.figshare.30797849"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1321498,"name":"Kai Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-5954-5764","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":856751,"name":"Henry Haig","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1443401,"name":"Paul Repgen","orcid":"0009-0008-7745-8796","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":293064,"name":"Frank W. Wise","orcid":"0000-0001-8333-2470","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1443402,"name":"F. Ömer İlday","orcid":"0000-0002-9057-5371","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":397926,"name":"Bryan Q. Spring","orcid":"0000-0001-7332-7707","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1149877,"name":"Liam J. Price","orcid":"0000-0002-3868-9056","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":55,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:07.823422Z","pmid":"41532132","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}