The Ablation Team within the Institute of Physics at the Faculty of Science and Informatics is led by Dr. Béla Hopp, and conducts high standard research in the field of medical and materials scientific applications of lasers. Alongside with their basic research activity, the members of the Team strive for developing practical methods based on their results.

The Ablation Team uses lasers for the segmentation, controlled transfer and deposition of biological materials which is a novel and promising field of research with great prospects. By this technology the associates could produce open heterogeneous stripes, layers and three-dimensional structures from living cells and biomaterials. The final aim of their research, among many others, is to produce new generation tissue-based sensors and living human tissues.  Their novel, altered method enabled the researchers to transfer biological materials, such as spores and living cells. The transferred conidiums germinated, the cells continued to develop; they remained viable through the laser transmission.

The pulsed laser deposition of thin films (PLD) that is based on the high-intensity laser ablation of solid target objects proved to be applicable to produce thin films from a wide variety of materials. The team successfully produced thin films from polymers (Teflon), from biologically degradable plastic (polyhydroxybutyrate), from ezymes (urease, pepsin) and from human materials (tooth) as well. In the future, the associates are going to examine the medical diagnostical and maybe therapeutical application possibilities of these thin films.

The research team also deals with the pulsed laser precision processing of transparent materials. Transparent materials processed in the micro- and nanometer ranges offer a number of micro-optical application opportunities, which fact makes their processing methods one of the frequently researched fields of physics. Among the indirect methods the most significant ones are the laser induced backside wet etching and the team’s own development, the laser induced backside dry etching (LIBWE, LIBDE). By these methods the researchers produced fused silica gratings having 266 nm period, and by the LIBWE method they were even able to reach the104 nm period which is highly significant in point of the application possibilities.

In the fields of clinical practice and research, there is a gradually increasing demand for the constant monitoring of the blood supply of larger areas, for instance, during the examination of the vascularity of surgically reattached limbs, of the surface of the brain or of the fundus of the eye. Due to the research results of the team, it is possible to constantly measure the blood supply of an area as large as a hand by laser speckle (dispersal interference) contrast analysis. The researchers developed a sampling and data processing algorithm that eliminates measurement ambiguities caused by undesirable surface dispersal and reflection.