Industrial Lasers

Author: the photonics expert Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta (RP)

Industrial lasers are lasers for applications in industry. A classical example is a wide range of lasers (or complete laser systems) for use in laser material processing, e.g. for laser cutting, welding and marking. There are various other industrial laser applications such as optical metrology with laser interferometers and laser scanners, optical sampling on semiconductor chips and fiber-optic sensors. Optical fiber communications can in principle also be regarded as an industrial laser application. Most frequently, however, the term industrial lasers is applied in the context of manufacturing.

Special Requirements

The performance specifications for industrial lasers often do not approach the limits of currently available technology. On the other hand, there are often additional requirements which are specific for industrial applications:

Laser Reliability

High reliability over a large number of operation hours is often essential for amortizing the high cost of a laser system. Unexpected interruptions of production processes due to laser failures can be very costly.

Therefore, the laser development needs to pay special attention to reliability issues. For example, one needs to establish a highly reliable supply of optical and other components with well defined quality levels. The laser design must be carefully worked out.

The manufacturing procedures for industrial lasers must be carefully crafted and well defined to be consistently carried out by well trained personnel, and appropriate quality control procedures need to be established. The reliability of the built lasers must often be tested over prolonged times before first devices can be shipped.

In addition, well defined and regularly applied service procedures can be important. For those, typically used spare parts must be kept readily available.

Further, a manufacturer may use special techniques for monitoring lasers during their use. One may use direct data transmission from lasers to the manufacturer such that the latter can recognize problems early on, for example to replace critical parts before they fail, or to initiate cleaning or realignment procedures.

Another aspect is that possibly needed replacement parts should be quickly available from stock. Otherwise, substantial downtimes of the laser system may result, which can in practice be highly expensive.

Production Volumes

Industrial lasers are often used in large quantities. That makes it easier for manufacturers to amortize the high cost of laser development. On the other hand, high volume production capabilities need to be built up because industrial customers may not be willing to accept long waiting times before delivery.

Identifying Laser Applications

It is often essential to recognize laser applications with high economical benefits and to learn about their exact requirements.

It can frequently not be expected that the end user knows the precise conditions under which a certain laser-based manufacturing technique, for example, can be optimally applied. Therefore, it can be highly useful if a laser manufacturer has developed a deep understanding of certain laser-based processes and the optimum laser parameters for those. For the economical success of both parties, that can be more vital than the capability to achieve highest laser performance.

Sales and Marketing, Product Management

Obviously, the sales and marketing as well as the product management of industrial lasers must appropriately address the user group. That allows a supplier to assist the customers in the whole process from the acquisition of suitable lasers to their successful operation. Ideally, a partnership is established where the laser manufacturer can continuously learn more about the price size customer needs and adapt the products and services accordingly.

Industrial Laser Manufacturers

A successful manufacturer of industrial lasers must be able to address the special requirements of this application field as explained above. Some of those requirements are difficult to meet by small laser companies, and particularly by startups. For example, it is difficult to establish the required large volume fabrication capabilities in a company with limited financial resources. Also, the laser development process with various precautions for high laser reliability can be difficult to establish.

For those reasons, industrial lasers are mostly produced by larger manufacturers having different characteristics compared with those for the production of scientific lasers. Such differences concerned not only the technical development and production, but also other aspects such as sales and marketing. If a large laser manufacturer is active in both industrial and scientific lasers, these activities are often pursued in separate branches, which may well cooperate in certain technical areas while having separate management and product development.

OEM Lasers

Industrial lasers are not necessarily sold as complete laser systems, but often in the form of OEM laser modules. That means that a manufacturer supplies lasers to one or more other manufacturers who integrate them into larger machines, for example for laser material processing. Each company can then concentrate on its own areas of responsibility, without a necessity to completely understand the whole system.

See the article on OEM laser modules for more details.

More to Learn

Suppliers

The RP Photonics Buyer's Guide contains 37 suppliers for industrial lasers. Among them:

CNI Laser

CNI offers a range of industrial lasers, including:

• laser diode modules, e.g. narrow-linewidth DFB lasers, picosecond lasers, alignment lasers and others
• diode-pumped solid-state lasers with high stability, low noise, high output power or pulse energy, Q-switched and mode-locked picosecond versions, etc.
• fiber lasers with SM or MM fiber output, pulse width <200 ps, tunable versions with 1–250 ns pulse width, modulation rates up to 1 MHz

We specialize in designing and manufacturing custom-made and OEM lasers to suit our clients' particular needs. In fact, 75% of the lasers manufactured involve some type of custom work.

Sacher Lasertechnik

Sacher Lasertechnik offers various kinds of industrial lasers:

• the Micron laser, an ultra-stable X-cavity laser
• argon ion and HeNe lasers for life sciences
• continuous-wave and pulsed laser diode modules
• high brightness laser systems for Raman spectroscopy

TOPTICA Photonics

TOPTICA's single-frequency diode lasers employ state-of-the-art diode technology to achieve the highest single-frequency output power of any direct diode-based system. For example, the TopMode 405-nm model offers as much as 100 mW – an industry record!

Monocrom

Monocrom's precision industrial laser systems are proved to be more efficient, precise and versatile in many industrial processes compared to other products offered in the market. They are sucessfully used in different types of material processing, from surface structuring, marking and stamping to steel cutting and roll-forming. Our laser modules offer a high power efficiency and reliable performance together with accuracy in operation. The result is high quality parts with superb finish.

We also offer price competitive laser modules for light-assisted sensing in modern production lines for the food and bevarage industry and laser-based illumination sources for 3D scanning, radiography, CTP, particle image velocimetry (PIV) and pattern projection.

Our products can be found in quality control sensors, measuring instruments (pointers, levelers, distance range finders) profilers, markers, 3D scanners, holographic projectors, laser cutting and welding equipment, laser-assisted roll-forming and surface microstructuring equipment.

Osela

The Industrial Laser System (ILS) is a self-contained thermo-electric cooled laser projection system with integrated laser beam shaping designed for high signal to noise industrial applications. The ILS’ compact size allows for easy integration and design considerations for heat dissipation keeps the output of the laser stable in industrial as much as lab environments. In-house optical manufacturing guarantees superior beam quality. Wavelengths from 405 nm – 810 nm with powers up to 4 W are available.

AdValue Photonics

AdValue Photonics has developed a number of industrial fiber laser products, operating in different wavelengths regions and pulse duration regimes, or in continuous-wave mode. They are suitable for a range of industrial applications, including laser cutting, drilling and ablation.

See also our overview on fiber laser products!

Fluence

JASPER is a 1030-nm high-power femtosecond fiber laser delivering up to 160 µJ and 20 W average power. With truly monolithic all-fiber front-end this laser provides fast warm-up time, unprecedented long-term stability and hands-free operation. Contrary to free space laser amplifiers, fiber amplifiers ensure unbeatable beam pointing stability even in harsh environment.

Questions and Comments from Users