The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 20, 1999
Filed:
Aug. 01, 1996
Nikolai I Tankovich, San Diego, CA (US);
ThermoLase Corporation, San Diego, CA (US);
Abstract
A process for the permanent destruction of unwanted human hair. Hair duct in a section of skin in which the unwanted hair is growing is contaminated with a contaminant having a very large number of small particles having a high absorption at at least one frequency band of light. The skin section is then illuminated with a series of short pulses of light at the frequency band of high absorption, the first of the short pulses having sufficient energy to cause a large number of the particles to explode into two or more fragments so as to spread said contaminant in the hair ducts and subsequent pulses having sufficient energy to cause a large number of the fragments to further explode into additional fragments to further spread the contaminant in the hair duct. The explosions and energy is transferred to and from the particles and fragments causing damage to skin tissue surrounding said hair ducts so as to cause death to the hairs growing in the ducts. In a preferred embodiment the particles are 1 micron graphite particles and each section is illuminated with about 5 laser pulses at 1.06 micron wavelength produced by a Nd:YAG laser, each pulse having an energy density of about 3 Joules/cm.sup.2 and a pulse width of about 10 nano seconds.