Editing Excimer laser (section)

=== Medical uses ===
The ultraviolet light from an excimer laser is well absorbed by [[biotic material|biological matter]] and [[organic compound]]s.  Rather than burning or cutting material, the excimer laser adds enough energy to disrupt the molecular bonds of the surface tissue, which effectively [[wikt:disintegrate|disintegrates]] into the air in a tightly controlled manner through [[ablation]] rather than burning. Thus excimer lasers have the useful property that they can remove exceptionally fine layers of surface material with almost no heating or change to the remainder of the material which is left intact. These properties make excimer lasers well suited to precision micromachining organic material (including certain [[polymer]]s and plastics), or delicate [[surgery|surgeries]] such as [[LASIK|LASIK eye surgery]]. In 1980–1983, [[Rangaswamy Srinivasan]], [[Samuel Blum]] and [[James J. Wynne]] at [[IBM]]'s [[Thomas J. Watson Research Center|T. J. Watson Research Center]] observed the effect of the ultraviolet excimer laser on biological materials. Intrigued, they investigated further, finding that the laser made clean, precise cuts that would be ideal for delicate surgeries.  This resulted in a fundamental patent<ref>{{Ref patent|country=US|number=4784135|title= Far ultraviolet surgical and dental procedures|gdate=1988-10-15}}</ref> and Srinivasan, Blum and Wynne were elected to the [[National Inventors Hall of Fame]] in 2002. In 2012, the team members were honored with [[National Medal of Technology and Innovation]] by the [[President of The United States|President]] [[Barack Obama]] for their work related to the excimer laser.<ref>{{cite web|title=IBM News Release|url=http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/39829.wss|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121231063032/http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/39829.wss|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 31, 2012|publisher=IBM|access-date=21 December 2012|date=2012-12-21}}</ref>  Subsequent work  introduced the excimer laser for use in [[angioplasty]].<ref>{{cite journal | title = Far-ultraviolet laser ablation of atherosclerotic lesions |author1=R. Linsker |author2=R. Srinivasan |author3=J. J. Wynne |author4=D. R. Alonso | journal = Lasers Surg. Med. | volume=4 | issue=1 | pages=201–206 | year=1984 | doi = 10.1002/lsm.1900040212|pmid=6472033 |s2cid=12827770 }}</ref> Xenon chloride (308&nbsp;nm) excimer lasers are also used to treat a variety of dermatological conditions including [[psoriasis]], [[vitiligo]], [[atopic dermatitis]], [[alopecia areata]] and leukoderma.{{citation needed|date=August 2024}}

As light sources, excimer lasers are generally large in size, which is a disadvantage in their medical applications, although their sizes are rapidly decreasing with ongoing development.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

Research is being conducted to compare differences in safety and effectiveness outcomes between conventional excimer laser [[refractive surgery]] and wavefront-guided or wavefront-optimized refractive surgery, as wavefront methods may better correct for [[aberrations of the eye|higher-order aberrations]].<ref name="Li">{{cite journal |vauthors=Li SM, Kang MT, Zhou Y, Wang NL, Lindsley K |title= Wavefront excimer laser refractive surgery for adults with refractive errors |journal=Cochrane Database Syst Rev|volume=6 |issue= 6 |pages= CD012687 |date=2017 |doi= 10.1002/14651858.CD012687|pmc=6481747 }}</ref>