h a l f b a k e r yAssume a hemispherical cow.
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Toenails can get gnarly. But lasers can vaporize any organic matter. The LTA device fits over the toe and holds it steady. One laser assesses viability of tissue via reflectance: normal well perfused tissue will reflect the laser at a given frequency (like a pulse oximeter). If not viable (and therefore
toenail, or possibly callus/wart) there is a burst o flaser energy to that spot. A vacuum sucks air thru the LTA, cooling the toe and removing vapor.
Iterative ablation yields a baby smooth and well groomed toe!
Laser toenail fungus
http://www.google.c...&q=laser+toe+fungus
A popular ad on local radio shills one of these [csea, Aug 25 2010]
[link]
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That sounds so clinical and precise ... can we use it ? It sounds so much better than "Keep blasting away until you hit something expensive". |
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Could we program it to sculpt the nails a bit? |
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Can the vapour be captured and used to punish juvenile miscreants? |
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By casting voodoo spells on them? |
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Pulse oximeter doesn't reflect, it transmits. But that's
just
pedantry, the underlying logic isn't affected. |
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1) Would keratin vaporize, or would it burn? You need it
to vaporize, I think, so it wafts away on the breeze. If it
burns, you'll deposit smouldering black crud on the
nailbed, won't you?
2) Heat transmission through the as-yet-unvaporized nail
to the nailbed. If there's too much of that, this'll be
painful. If keratin actually does vaporize , that'll help with
this. |
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A more modest version would skip the "callus/wart" and
"baby
smooth" part, and just cut the toenail, using
machine vision to detect the line where the nail juts out
beyond the nailbed. |
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/Heat/
yes. This is why small laser pulses are used with breeze in between. Water might carry away heat even better and would not be difficult. |
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/where the nail juts out beyond the nailbed./
This needs to also ablate those gnarled and fungus-infested nails that are higher than they are long. |
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The callus/wart piece was from our PR people. Strictly nail it is. |
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