Patent ID: 8829392

Claim:
An apparatus for thermally processing a substrate, comprising: an energy source assembly that has an output that is adapted to deliver a first energy pulse; a pulse stretching device that comprises: a first beam splitting device that is adapted to split the first energy pulse delivered from the energy source assembly into a first sub-pulse and a second sub-pulse, wherein the first sub-pulse is transferred along a first path having a first length to a beam combining device; and a first plurality of mirrors that are aligned to reflect the second sub-pulse received from the first beam splitting device along a second path having a second length to the beam combining device; a first micro-lens array having a plurality of micro-lenses that are adapted to receive at least a portion of the first energy pulse; a second micro-lens array having a plurality of micro-lenses that are adapted to receive at least a portion of the energy transmitted from the first micro-lens array; a first lens that is positioned to receive the at least a portion of the energy transmitted from the micro lenses in the second micro-lens array and transmit the energy received from the second micro-lens array to one or more components that are used to direct the energy received to a surface of the substrate; a second lens that is positioned to receive at least a portion of the first energy pulse and cause one or more images received by the micro-lenses in the first micro-lens array to vary for two or more micro-lenses between a center and an edge of the first micro-lens array; and a random diffuser that is positioned to receive at least a portion of the first energy pulse and transmit the at least a portion of the first energy pulse to the first micro-lens array.