Treatment of Tattoos With a Picosecond Alexandrite Laser

Abstract

Lasers were first used to treat tattoos in the 1960s.¹ The use of quality-switching lasers (also known as Q-switching or QS lasers) beginning in the 1980s revolutionized the way tattoos and pigmented lesions were treated and became the gold standard treatment for tattoo removal.² To achieve selective photothermolysis, sufficient energy to damage the target needs to be delivered with a pulse duration that is less than the thermal relaxation time of the target, which is itself defined by the size and shape of the target.³ The smaller the target, the shorter the thermal relaxation time and therefore the shorter the laser pulse duration required.