Patent ID: 8258425

Claim:
A laser head for irradiating an interaction region of a structure with laser light to remove material from the structure, the laser head comprising: a housing; an anchoring mechanism reversably coupled to the housing and releasably affixed to the structure by vacuum pressure, the anchoring mechanism releasably holding the laser head at a selected position in relation to the structure; a connector coupled to the housing and optically coupled to a laser generator, the connector transmitting laser light from the laser generator; a plurality of optical elements contained in the housing and optically coupled to the connector to receive laser light from the connector; and a containment plenum coupled to the housing, the containment plenum optically coupled to the plurality of optical elements to receive the laser light from the plurality of optical elements, the containment plenum confining the material and removing the material from the interaction region resulting from irradiating the structure with the laser light.