Reflection of Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) laser radiation from the theatre surfaces

Abstract

This work has investigated the power of both specular and diffusely reflected beams of CO2 laser radiation from metallic and non-metallic surfaces of an operating theatre including surgical instruments (specula) and different samples of wall paints in theatre 6 of the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, U.K. where the CO2 laser radiation is used for surgical treatment. Transmission of the beam through theatre clothing materials as well as relationship between incident and reflected power were also investigated. This study has revealed that linear relationship exists between incident and reflected power and that all metallic surfaces reflect a high proportion of the incident CO2 laser radiation. The surgical instrument (vagina speculum) reflects over 55% of the incident CO2 radiation. Other metallic surfaces (e.g. aluminum) reflect up to 60%. Specular reflectance from non-metallic surfaces was as high as 8% from the theater wall (gloss paint). Each of these values produced very high irradiance (W/cm2) of 11.21, 12.71 and 1.66 for vagina speculum, aluminum surface and theatre wall respectively. All cloth materials tested for transmission absorbed over 97% of the incident radiation.

Keywords: Laser radiation, reflection, transmission and irradiance.

Nigerian Journal of Physics Vol. 18 (1) 2006: pp. 127-134