Thermal analysis of cornea heated with terahertz radiation

Abstract

We numerically investigate the thermal effects in a cornea illuminated by terahertz radiation. By modifying the bioheat and Arrhenius equations, we studied the heat-transfer and temperature distributions in the corneal tissue, and evaluated the potential thermal damage. The influence of the beam radius and power density are discussed. We also estimated the effective cornea-collagen shrinkage region, and evaluated the degree of thermal damage in the cornea. We expect this work to open up a novel effective and safe thermal-treatment approach based on THz radiation for cornea reshaping in the field of ophthalmology.