Method and device for laser processing a workpiece

A method for laser processing a workpiece, the workpiece comprising a material transparent to a laser beam of the laser processing, the method comprising:

• splitting an input laser beam by using a beam splitter into three or more partial beams, wherein the splitting of the input laser beam is performed by application of phases to a beam cross section of the input laser beam,
• focusing the three or more partial beams decoupled from the beam splitter by using a focusing optical unit, wherein multiple focus elements are formed by the focusing of the three or more partial beams, and
• subjecting the material of the workpiece to at least a subset of the multiple focus elements, wherein the application of the phases is performed in such a way that at least three focus elements of the multiple focus elements have different distances from an outer side of the workpiece closest to the three focus elements and have different intensities from each other, and wherein a respective intensity of each respective focus element of the three focus elements is selected to be increasingly greater with increasing distance of the respective focus element from the outer side of the workpiece closest to the respective focus element.