Importance

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Abstract

A method and system for patient optical fixation are disclosed. One embodiment of the system comprises: a light source operable to provide a fixation light beam; a filter optically coupled to the light source and operable to attenuate the fixation light beam to provide an apodized light beam, wherein the apodized light beam comprises a more attenuated portion and a less attenuated portion; and a viewer, operable to receive a reflected fine align beam and a reflected coarse align beam from a fixation target. The light source can be, for example, a laser, a light emitting diode or a laser diode. The filter can be a neutral density ('ND') filter, comprising: an aperture through which a first portion of the fixation light beam can pass unattenuated by the ND filter to form the less attenuated portion of the apodized light beam; and a filter region for attenuating a second portion of the fixation light beam to form the more attenuated portion of the apodized light beam. This embodiment of the system of the present invention can further comprise a set of focusing lenses operable to receive and focus the more attenuated portion of the apodized light beam to provide a patient coarse align light beam to aid a patient in achieving fixation on the less attenuated portion of the apodized light beam. The focusing lenses can be configured to provide an intermittent blinking patient coarse align light beam. The fixation target can be a human eye and the selected region can be the cornea of a human eye.

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First Claim