Patent ID: 8790382

Claim:
A laser therapy device, comprising: a laser diode that is adapted to produce a monochromatic laser beam that naturally diverges in two orthogonal directions; a lens that is adapted to receive the beam directly from the laser diode and to exploit the natural divergence of the laser diode in two orthogonal directions to form an essentially coherent monochromatic, collimated beam in the two orthogonal directions as output from the lens; the formed beam being adapted to form on a plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the beam an elongated illuminated area in which the length of the illuminated area is at least twice the size of the width of the illuminated area as a result of collimating the beam while exploiting the natural divergence of the laser diode and the laser therapy device being configured to irradiate a surface with the formed beam without further modification of the formed beam; a controller that is adapted to control activation of the laser diode; an encasement enclosing said laser diode, said lens and said controller; wherein said encasement is adapted to be hand held by the user; and wherein the device includes a safety mechanism that activates the device by pressing the device against the illuminated object, the safety mechanism comprising: two microswitches within the encasement; and two spring-loaded sliders positioned at opposite sides of the lens, individual sliders being configured to depress respective individual microswitches in turn configured to instruct the controller to activate the laser diode.