Tag Archives: materials processing

Ultra-High Brightness Direct Diodes for Material Processing

Posted on by
Reply

By Silke Pflueger

Invented two short years after the ruby laser in 1962, diode lasers are now taken for granted in many areas of our lives. You use them each time you pick up the phone, use a DVD or Blu-ray Disc, print or are at the grocery store checkout. All in all diode lasers make up a market of more than $3 billion, 50 percent of the total laser market.

Of course all these are very low power applications, with power levels in the milliwatt range, not quite usable for cutting or welding. Getting to higher power levels was driven mostly out of the need for better pumps for solid state lasers starting in the 1980s. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated a 1.45 kW stack in 1990, with high power laser bars cooled by silicon microchannel coolers. The late 1990s saw the first companies producing high power diode lasers for direct use in industrial applications. Limited by their brightness, these diode lasers were mostly used for plastic welding and heat treatment. Continue reading →

Focus on All of Your Materials Processing Needs at LME 2014 & its New Lasers for Manufacturing Summit

Posted on by
Reply

By Geoff Giordano

More than four years ago, consensus began building in the United States on the need for a “laser only” show focused solely on the benefits of industrial laser materials processing.

Now in its fourth year, the Laser Institute of America’s one-of-a-kind Lasers for Manufacturing Event® (LME®) will build on its momentum and value with the addition of a one-day Lasers for Manufacturing Summit. The summit, to be held Sept. 22, precedes LME 2014 on Sept. 23-24 at the Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL.

LME has made believers of companies that want to talk directly to established or potential customers and attendees who need to learn the nuts and bolts of using lasers efficiently and profitably. With its range of educational levels and opportunities for vendors to present to attendees at the Laser Technology Showcase Theater, LME provides one-stop shopping for companies interested in integrating laser technology into their production. Continue reading →

ILSC 2015: Preparing You for the Challenges of Today’s Technological Advancements and Their Impact on Laser Safety

Posted on by
Reply

By Geoff Giordano

On the heels of significant revisions to two parent laser safety standards, the Laser Institute of America’s biennial International Laser Safety Conference (ILSC®) from March 23-26 in Albuquerque, NM, will again showcase the best user practices in industrial and medical photonics applications.

Chaired again by Ben Rockwell from Fort Sam Houston, TX, ILSC 2015 promises to devote significant time to focusing on new guidelines in the just-revised ANSI Z136.1-2014 and IEC 60825 standards for laser safety.

Rockwell, general chair of ILSC since 2007, ensures that the conference has “topics from the very basic, fundamental laser safety — for example, the best way to do calculations, the best way to read select standards and make your personal interpretations and apply those standards — to very advanced topics like fume extraction, what the latest maximum permissible exposure changes are, and how those are relevant to the bioeffects that really occur in the human.”

ILSC will follow its traditional format of Medical and Technical Practical Applications Seminars (PAS) and Laser Safety Scientific Sessions (LSSS). The industry leading experts in charge of those educational tracks promise a hard-hitting slate of trailblazing content. Continue reading →

High-Power Laser Materials Processing

Posted on by
Reply

By Eckhard Beyer and Achim Mahrle

The high power laser market has been remarkably influenced by the introduction of high-brightness lasers, i.e., laser sources offering a high optical output power in combination with a high beam quality or a low beam parameter product, respectively. These features are primarily exhibited by fiber and disk laser systems, but diode lasers are also increasingly available with improved beam quality and higher output levels. The development of new processes that make use of the advantages of high-brightness lasers was intensively pursued in recent years and some examples of innovative solutions were given in this paper.

On the other hand, the advent of high-brightness lasers also gave rise to some technical challenges, which still need a reliable solution. One point concerns the optical feedback due to back reflections during processing highly reflective materials. Another serious and often discussed topic, is the occurrence of unacceptable focus shifts when working with high-intensity laser beams. Continue reading →

ICALEO 2009 – Accepting the Challenge

Posted on by
Reply

Held in the Hilton located in the Walt Disney World® Resort, the 28th International Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro-Optics (ICALEO®) once again brought together many of the best and brightest of laser and optics professionals and scientists to network and review the state-of-the-art in laser materials processing and predict where the future will lead. For four full days, plus the pre-conference Welcome Celebration held poolside at the Hilton Hotel, ICALEO 2009 provided a platform for the current issues on the forefront of laser materials processing.

Continue reading →