Patent ID: 8743165

Claim:
An apparatus for thermal or photochemical patterning of a workpiece, including: an essentially one-dimensional SLM with pixels, each pixel including more than five diffractive micro mirrors with an operating frequency for micro mirror reloading and repositioning of 500 KHz or greater; a workpiece stage that holds and moves a workpiece; a laser that emits pulses shorter than 100 ps with an average power greater than or equal to 1 watt; illumination optics that couple the laser to the SLM and that create an array of beamlets that illuminate pixels of the SLM; demagnifying optics that couple the SLM to the workpiece and that projects modulated laser pulses with a pulse energy density on the workpiece greater than or equal to 1 J/sq. cm; and a controller that feeds data to the SLM and that moves the workpiece stage in synchronicity with the pulses from the laser.