Patent ID: 7985942

Claim:
A method of meeting consistently a quality metric specified for regions of target specimen material processed by laser output pulses emitted by different ones of a group of lasers, the laser output pulses before processing of target specimen material characterized by specified pulse width and fluence values, comprising: specifying a quality metric for laser-processed regions of target specimen material, the quality metric corresponding to a laser processing operation-specific characteristic parameter or physical condition of the target specimen material processed by the laser output pulses; setting a nominal pulse fluence value, F nom , specified for a laser-processing operation to which the quality metric corresponds; setting a nominal pulse width value, τ nom , specified for the lasers in the group; obtaining for the group of lasers pulse width information representing an actual pulse width, τ Laser , of each laser in the group; and normalizing all lasers in the group relative to the nominal pulse width value, τ nom , by adjusting the nominal pulse fluence value, τ nom , of the laser output pulses to establish, for each laser in the group, adjusted energy values, F, that cause the regions of target specimen material processed by the laser output pulses to meet consistently the quality metric specified, the adjusting of the nominal pulse fluence value, τ nom , including determining for the lasers in the group adjusted energy values, F, expressed as F = F nom ⁢ τ Laser τ nom .