Once the cancerous area is precisely targeted, only the intensity of the laser radiation needs to be turned up in order to irradiate, or burn off, the tumor.
The other two methods rely on specially shaped laser beams - instead of a beam whose intensity peaks at its centre and tails off gradually, the team is investigating two alternatives: solenoid beams and Bessel beams.
According to the automaker, laser lighting can produce a forward beam with an intensity a thousand times greater than conventional LEDs, but with half the energy consumption.
That means that although the laser's electrical input is about the amount needed to run a bedside lamp, an individual pulse has an intensity of several million watts.