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!
-- bungston, Aug 24 2010

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]

// Iterative ablation //

That sounds so clinical and precise ... can we use it ? It sounds so much better than "Keep blasting away until you hit something expensive".
-- 8th of 7, Aug 24 2010


Could we program it to sculpt the nails a bit?
-- baconbrain, Aug 24 2010


Can the vapour be captured and used to punish juvenile miscreants?
-- xenzag, Aug 24 2010


By casting voodoo spells on them?
-- baconbrain, Aug 24 2010


Pulse oximeter doesn't reflect, it transmits. But that's just pedantry, the underlying logic isn't affected.

More germane quibbles:

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.

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.
-- mouseposture, Aug 24 2010


/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.

/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.

The callus/wart piece was from our PR people. Strictly nail it is.
-- bungston, Aug 25 2010



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