Method and system for ablating surfaces with partially overlapping craters having consistent curvature

摘要

A technique for laser sculpting a predetermined shape on an exposed corneal surface by ablating a sequence of consistently curved craters with individual pulses of a laser beam. An initial laser beam energy pattern is shaped by a laser beam shaping element to make a consistently curved laser beam energy pattern. The consistently curved laser beam ablates a consistently curved crater in the surface with a single pulse of the laser beam. A computer controls the position of the laser beam and scans the laser beam over the surface to sculpt the predetermined shape in an ablation zone on the exposed surface. A sequence of partially overlapping craters is distributed over the ablation zone. In some embodiments diffractive optics are used as a beam shaping element. In additional embodiments, the consistently curved crater is a uniformly curved spherical crater.