Method of cutting material for use in implantable medical device

A method of creating an implantable medical prosthesis, comprising: providing a sheet of flexible source equipment (90), synthetic or biological explanted, having at least two fabric layers; and cutting a segment of tissue from the sheet of the source material with a laser beam (88); said cutting comprising operating a laser at a power and pulse rate such that the laser beam along welds the layers of the source material along an edge (100) cut by the laser without significantly burning the material adjacent source to cut edge; characterized in that the laser (72) is operated by pulses, supplying between about 0.005 to 0.5 joules of laser energy per pulse, a laser spot size of about .05-.13 mm (0.002 to 0.005 inch) diameter.