A series of laser pulses in a pulse train, each pulse with a beneficial temporal power shape instead of the conventional laser temporal power shape, scribes a line in a thin film of material on a substrate. The beneficial temporal pulse shape has a spike/plateau chair shape or a square pulse shape. Scribing a line in the thin film is achieved by placing the series of laser pulse spots on the line to be scribed such that there is an overlapping area between adjacent laser pulse spots along the line. The use of a series of laser pulses with beneficial pulse shape to scribe a line in the thin film results in a better quality and cleaner scribing process compared to that achieved with the conventional pulse shape.