Modeling of Ultrafast Laser Transport and Applications

Recent advances in biomedicine involving the use of ultrashort pulsed laser technology, including such applications as optical tomography and plasma-mediated ablation, have mandated the necessity of accurately modeling ultrafast propagation of radiant energy through solution of the timedependent equation of radiative transfer. Numerical modeling can be implemented as a realistic alternative for situations where ultrafast laser experimentation is either complicated or expensive in nature. In this review, advances in the computational modeling of ultrafast radiative transfer in participating media are discussed. Various numerical solution techniques are discussed and the major advantages and challenges to each are noted. Applications of ultrafast laser transport are discussed.