Patent ID: 7176407

Claim:
A system for precisely positioning a waist of a material-processing laser beam to dynamically compensate for local variations in height of microstructures located on a plurality of objects spaced apart within a laser-processing site, the system comprising: a focusing lens subsystem for focusing a laser beam along an optical axis; a first actuator for moving the objects in a plane; a second actuator for moving the focusing lens subsystem along the optical axis; a controller for controlling the first actuator based on reference data which represents 3-D locations of microstructures to be processed within the site; and for controlling of the second actuator also based on the reference data wherein the first and second actuators controllably move the objects and the focusing lens subsystem, respectively, to precisely position the waist of the laser beam and the objects so that the waist substantially coincides with the 3-D locations of the microstructures within the site.