FEATURE FIBRE LASERS
Coherent’s Adjustable Ring Mode fibre lasers feature two independently controllable, co-axial beams from a single fibre g
Andreas Siewert, European sales manager at IPG Laser: The extraordinary development of fibre lasers at IPG over the past 10 years has contributed to increasing their market share in the overall laser market. During this period, the R&D focus was less on improving the beam quality or increasing the laser power for ytterbium high-power CW fibre lasers, as today’s laser power was already available 10 years ago. Rather, the development focus was on increasing the wall-plug efficiency to more than 50 per cent for ytterbium fibre lasers. The reduction and optimisation of
the individual components was key to developing fibre lasers that are now much more compact and cost effective to produce. Ten years ago a 1kW IPG fibre laser was available in a 4U 19-inch rack. Today we supply 4kW lasers in the same housing. Therefore, the power-per-volume increased by a factor of four. This development will continue and
will lead to more compact fibre lasers. IPG’s new YLR-U series incorporates the latest advances in industrial pump diode packaging, in combination with the high performance of its fibre design. The 2kW IPG fibre laser is now available in a 2U
19-inch rack. The company is currently working on scaling this laser class to higher powers. In the future 6kW average power will be available in a 4U 19-inch rack housing. The average power for IPG nanosecond pulsed fibre lasers increased from 200W to 3kW in the decade. The current development will lead to 5kW and more, to increase market share in the laser cleaning market. Ultra short pulsed fibre lasers had an average power of a few watts in 2010. Now picosecond and femtosecond lasers, with average powers exceeding 100W, are commercially available. Such higher average and peak powers became available with the development of new fibre technology. The development of fibre lasers with
shorter wavelengths with today’s green or UV lasers have also reached power levels of several hundred watts.
Mark Greenwood, CEO of Trumpf Laser UK: In 2010 nanosecond pulsed fibre lasers were only in the tens of watts of output power, while CW laser sources had just reached kilowatt capability and represented a disruptive new-kid-on-the-
block technology. Both have progressed in power capability by an order of magnitude, with nanosecond pulsed fibre lasers now in the hundreds of watts and CW in the tens of kilowatts, becoming the dominant technology for materials processing. Although fibre lasers were by nature hugely efficient compared to other solid state and CO2
laser sources,
some incremental efficiencies have been achieved here too. The size of lasers has also reduced substantially over the period: a 400W CW laser of 2010 is now the same size as a 2kW laser. The cost of these lasers has also reduced dramatically, as the technology has matured and industry uptake has increased, with volumes going from hand-crafted low-volume production to lean, single-piece manufacturing lines. This move to volume manufacturing
has resulted in significant improvements in quality and reliability. With minimal maintenance requirements fibre lasers truly represent fit-and-forget technology. Another key development has been the ability to change beam characteristics within the laser, which is providing some advantages in certain applications. Fibre laser technology, although
maturing nicely, is not yet out of steam and there is still plenty of scope for innovation. Further increases in power and functionality, combined with further miniaturisation and price erosion will come, helping fuel the next generation of applications. EO
References 1
2
The average power of IPG’s nanosecond pulsed fibre lasers has increased from 200W to up to 3kW over the past decade
24 Electro Optics July 2021
nLight’s latest programmable AFX-1000 laser is suited to metal additive manufacturing applications
Form S-4 Rockley Photonics Holdings; https://sec. report/Document/0001193125-21-105235/
A. Toulouse et al., Light: Advanced Manufacturing (2020)1:5 Official journal of the JHL 2689-9620;
https://doi.org/10.37188/lam.2020.005
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