A second-generation laser fiber developed by Iowa State and the Ames-based company Full Spectrum, Inc. has received Food and Drug Administration 510(k) pre-market approval.

The new fiber is an improvement to the company’s first fiber, an Ultra Low Expansion (ULE) product designed to withstand the rigors of laser surgery. Iowa State’s Center for Advanced Technology Development guided the collaborative project with the Department of Material Science and Engineering.

“The main reason we had to develop the new fiber was that conventional fibers were in contact with tissue during surgery,” said Dr. Abduelouahed Soufiane, director of material development at Full Spectrum. Soufiene said that when current fibers come in contact with tissue during laser surgery, they begin to breakdown.

Soufiane said the second generation laser fiber is “mechanically very strong” and can withstand the bending, pulling and “torture” of surgery. He also said it has better transmission.

“The fiber is a composite of ULE glass and other silica-based glasses,” Soufiane said.

John Weise, an associate for the Center for Advanced Technology Development, said the second generation fiber is more durable than its predecessor. “The first generation used a new material,” Weise said. “The second generation fiber is wrapped. This makes it stronger.”

The ULE fibers overcome the material failure typical when traditional, glass laser fiber comes in contact with human tissue. The new ULE fiber can also be used with more types of lasers than the first generation, Soufiane said.

The first-generation fibers, developed by Full Spectrum and ISU, received a R&D Award from Research and Development magazine in 1995 as one of the top technologies marketed that year. Soufiane said he hopes the new fiber is equally as successful.

Weise said ISU’s role was more that of researcher and therefore looks forward to the technological advances the new fiber poses. “Full Spectrum is interested in making products,” he said. “ISU takes credit for development of technology. Our success is in new technology.”

Full Spectrum paid ISU to research the project. The principal investigator was Steve Martin, an associate professor of material science and engineering at ISU. Martin said he worked on the first generation fiber for six years.

“I developed it and got it working and transferred it to [Full Spectrum],” he said. “Full Spectrum then developed a fiber on their own.”

Despite all the technical complexity of developing a new laser fiber, Soufiane said the hardest part of getting FDA approval can be writing the application.

“In just two months we got approval thanks to our technical writer Carol Leininger,” he said. “If the application is wrong, it can take five to six years.”