the LADARVision® excimer laser

The success of your LASIK eye surgery can depend on the quality of the laser technology used. During your vision correction surgery, your doctor will use an excimer laser to reshape your cornea. The smaller and more precise the laser beam, the more precisely your surgeon can reshape your eye's cornea.

Not all excimer laser systems are created equal. The beams of light they produce can vary considerably, both in their shape, size, and nature. The LADARVision® System uses a flying small-spot laser beam that's just 0.8mm wide. So it is capable of removing your corneal tissue in very small or "subtle" increments, in both traditional and CustomCornea® treatments.

Every eye is unique, so all eyes need different amounts of treatment in different areas. This is measured by advanced wavefront mapping using the LADARWave® wavefront device. The intricacies of these measurements on the map are matched to the eye, and then used by the excimer laser to guide its fine, gradual reshaping of the cornea. Only a small-spot laser is accurate enough to make such tiny corrections.

The reshaping involved is microscopic – in fact, your doctor will be viewing your eyes through a microscope while performing the procedure. The LADARVision® excimer laser beam is non-heat generating, so it can reshape the cornea without thermal damage. The laser sculpts the cornea's surface using high-energy wavelengths of light.

When used with the LADARVision® System's eye tracking device and LADARWave® wavefront device, the excimer laser beam allows the surgeon to place laser pulses precisely where they are needed, providing you with a completely customized LASIK procedure, called CustomCornea®.