Patent ID: 8764736

Claim:
An ophthalmic surgical method, the method comprising: determining a surgical target region in an eye; selecting a protection region between the surgical target region and a photosensitive tissue located distal to the surgical target region; estimating a damage-threshold of the photosensitive tissue and a protection-threshold of the protection region; applying preliminary laser-pulses to the protection region with parameters between the damage-threshold and the protection threshold at a focus spot of the laser pulses to form a protection barrier; applying surgical laser pulses to the surgical target region with at least one parameter above the damage threshold; wherein the estimating the damage-threshold of the photosensitive tissue comprises: estimating damage-threshold laser parameters, wherein laser pulses applied with the damage-threshold laser parameters are capable of damaging the photosensitive tissue; and wherein the estimating the protection-threshold of the protection region comprises: estimating protection-threshold laser parameters, wherein laser pulses applied with the protection-threshold laser parameters are capable of forming a protection barrier in the protection region.