Patent ID: 8461478

Claim:
A laser system having a plurality of laser beams generated from an output of a single laser for cutting patterns into a plurality of stents at the same time, with each of the plurality of laser beams being controllable to produce a desired power, polarization and spot size and each laser beam directed at a separate stent work piece, comprising: a laser capable of emitting a linearly polarized laser beam; at least one partially transmissive and partially reflective beam splitter capable of transmitting and reflecting the laser beam at a nearly linear polarization and which introduces no polarization change to the laser beam and which is capable of dividing the laser beam emitted by the laser into two laser beams; a half wave plate disposed in an optical path of each of the laser beams, the half wave plate being capable of being rotated to alter the polarization direction each laser beam; a polarizer disposed in the optical path of each laser beam for adjusting the laser power of the laser beam at a selected polarization direction; an adjustable beam expander disposed in the optical path of each laser beam to adjust the size of the laser beam; a quarter-wave plate disposed in each laser beam after the beam splitter and any intervening mirrors for introducing circular polarization into the laser beam; and a focusing lens for focusing each laser beam to a desired spot size; and wherein circularly polarized beam spot for each laser beam is controlled to accurately cut the stent pattern into the stent work piece upon which each laser beam impinges.