Encyclopedia Articles on Laser Material Processing

Posted on 2022-08-04 as part of the Photonics Spotlight (available as e-mail newsletter!)

Permanent link: https://www.rp-photonics.com/spotlight_2022_08_04.html

Author: Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta, RP Photonics AG, RP Photonics AG

Abstract: The RP Photonics Encyclopedia covers the field of laser material processing quite comprehensively and carefully. For example, it explains underlying physical principles and resulting limitations.

I apologize for having neglected this blog for quite a while; that is largely due to many time-consuming activities around our move back to Switzerland. And there is one more exciting thing in the development of RP Photonics which kept me quite busy recently, but that will be announced later this year. Anyway, this is now all done!

In 2021, I have added substantial content to the RP Photonics Encyclopedia in the area of laser material processing. That plan had existed for longer while, but it could not be implemented so quickly since it is of course rather time-consuming to author a set of articles which really cover such a complex topical area very well. And some quick-and-dirty solution was not an option for me; it would not have been particularly valuable for the community. Note that there are so many articles on laser material processing out there already; so there is certainly no lack of quantity, but often a lack of quality: most authors try to do an easy job, relatively superficially covering the subjects. To create real value, one just needs to work harder, e.g. well ordering a lot of knowledge items and thoughts to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the subject (without which is hard to helpfully explain things). All this was finally done a bit more than a year ago. Curiously, I forgot to announce that in this blog at that time.

If you haven't seen it yet, you may start exploring the new content with the introductory article on laser material processing, which is quite detailed and already gives a good overview of the field. However, many more details are presented in more specialized articles, particularly concerning methods:

I put great emphasis on explaining the physical principles of various processing methods and the resulting limitations. Various details of practical importance are also discussed.

In addition, there are some new articles related to the used machinery:

I was glad to obtain beautiful images from different research institutes, which are not only nice to look at but often create a more vivid impression of the machinery and the processes. If somebody can or for further nice and useful photographs for added value, these will be welcome.

Of course, there are a number of directly related product categories in the RP Photonics Buyer's Guide. As an example, see the category on laser drilling machinery. Users of those supplier listings benefit from the easy access to a lot of related scientific and technical information; it is often advisable to learn more about this before spending money on expensive hardware. At the same time, it can be helpful for readers of such encyclopedia articles to quickly find hardware suppliers in that area. Finally, it can be extremely useful for suppliers to be listed there with our advertising package, allowing them to publish their product descriptions, with which users can easily check who deserves a closer look to their website, promising to offer items which could be useful for them.

So we really expect multiple benefits from extending the encyclopedia in this topical direction. While initially it focused more on various technical aspects of lasers themselves, various application areas have become better and better covered, so that the encyclopedia now provides fairly comprehensive information in the whole area of photonics.

If you appreciate the value of that content, it would be kind if you could make other people aware of it, so that they can also benefit. For example, it is easy to post notes on such articles in social media and on technical forum pages. This is particularly of interest concerning laser material processing, since many may not be aware that our site also covers that well.

You can certainly imagine that an enormous amount of work is required for authoring such content. However, the very encouraging feedback from many sides is highly motivating, and of course also the resulting profitability of RP Photonics itself, in particular through our photonics marketing activities. A basic principle has always been: try to be highly useful for many, and you will thrive yourself!

This article is a posting of the Photonics Spotlight, authored by Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta. You may link to this page and cite it, because its location is permanent. See also the RP Photonics Encyclopedia.

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