Patent ID: 8198564

Claim:
A method for processing a workpiece using a laser beam with a selectively shaped spatial intensity profile, the method comprising: associating a first portion of the workpiece with a first set of processing characteristics and a second portion of the workpiece with a second set of processing characteristics; associating a first spatial intensity profile with the first set of characteristics and a second spatial intensity profile with the second set of characteristics, the first and second spatial intensity profiles corresponding to respective shapes of an output laser beam substantially incident on a focal plane of an objective lens; modulating at least one of the phase and the amplitude of an input laser beam to generate an output laser beam having the first spatial intensity profile, wherein the modulation is performed by one or more adaptive optic elements, and wherein the modulation separately modulates a first beam component having a low-order transverse mode using a first set of modulation characteristics and a second beam component having a high-order transverse mode using a second set of modulation characteristics so as to generate the first spatial intensity profile having a high resolution with reduced power loss; processing the first portion of the workpiece using the output laser beam having the first spatial intensity profile; dynamically switching, within a predetermined switching time, from the first spatial intensity profile of the output laser beam to the second spatial intensity profile of the output laser beam by adjusting the modulation of the input laser beam using the one or more adaptive optic elements; and processing the second portion of the workpiece using the output laser beam having the second spatial intensity profile.