A surgical laser system can include a laser engine to generate a laser beam of laser pulses; a scanning delivery system to direct the laser beam to a target region and to scan the laser beam along a scan-pattern in the target region; and a spatio-temporal modulator to perform a space- and time dependent modulation of the laser beam. The spatio-temporal modulation of the phases or amplitudes of the beam components can reduce or even eliminate uncut regions in the target region, caused by the destructive interference of the beam components brought about by a wrinkling of a portion of the target or by other beam distorting factors.