Patent ID: 8317780

Claim:
A dermatological handpiece for treating tissue comprising: a housing; a laser mounted within the housing and generating a pulsed beam of radiation; a diffractive element aligned with the beam for splitting the beam into a linear array of at least three sub-beams; a scanner positioned between the laser and the diffractive element for varying the entry angle and position of the beam axis onto the diffractive element; a lens system adjacent and closely spaced to the diffractive optical element without any beam steering elements therebetween, said lens system for focusing the sub-beams onto the tissue to create a linear array of substantially equally spaced treatment spots; and a controller operatively connected to the laser and the scanner and responsive to user input to create a two dimensional scanned pattern of spots and wherein in operation, the laser is commanded to deliver a first pulse which creates a line array of spots on the tissue, whereupon the controller causes the scanner to translate the beam axis to a second position on the diffractive element and thereafter the laser is commanded to deliver a second pulse which creates a line array of spots spatially separate from the first line array of spots, and wherein the controller is configured to successively translate the beam axis to a third and subsequent positions on the diffractive element while generating additional laser pulses at each said position to create a two dimensional array of spots on the tissue and wherein the spacing between the positions on the diffractive element can be controlled to control the density of the spots on the tissue.