Corneal Thermal Response to the CO(2) Laser.

A three-dimensional model of corneal thermal response to CO(2) laser radiation is constructed and numerical solutions for temperature rise are computed. Power distribution in the laser beam and a conducting air-cornea interface are considered explicitly. It is found that the radial distribution of temperature increases produced by a gaussian beam is also gaussian, for brief exposures. The corneal damage threshold is examined in terms of this result.