Method for the surgical treatment of the eye

Claim 1

For a method of non-invasive surgical treatment of the eye which comprises the steps of forming a convergent treatment laser beam, directing the focus of the convergent treatment laser beam onto the structure to be treated, shifting the focus with respect to the structure to be a certain distance in front of or behind the structure, delivering the treatment laser beam into said focus where the radiation intensity performs the surgery, an improvement to prevent damage to the structure of the eye not being treated, the improvement comprising the steps of: generating visible ancillary lower power laser observation beams to sense the outside envelope of the treatment laser beam, rotating said laser observation beams around the optical axis of said laser treatment beam, said laser observation beams intersecting in the focus position of the laser treatment beam, shifting the focus position of the treatment bean along the optical axis with respect to the intersection point of said laser observation beams, directing the laser observation beams onto treatment point of the structure to be irradiated so that they intersect said structure and provide dots of light thereon for observation purposes, inspecting the path of the observation laser beams to determine if the treatment beam on its pass into the focus will touch eye structure not being treated, adjusting the treatment laser beam in accordance with the results of the inspection step to ensure that the treatment beam does not touch structures not to be treated, and delivering the treatment laser beam into the focus to cause the surgery.