The development direction and application trend of laser technology

The development direction and application trend of laser technology

As a core driving force in the field of industrial manufacturing, laser technology itself is also evolving. laserpecker 12 To sum up, lasers are moving in four directions: faster, higher, better and shorter.

As a core driving force in the field of industrial manufacturing, laser technology itself is also evolving. laserpecker metal engraving In short, lasers are developing in the four directions of "faster, higher, better and shorter".

Higher: Laser power is getting higher and higher, and the average power has exceeded 100,000 watts. In 2013, the first commercial 100,000-watt fiber laser was installed at the NADEX Center in Nagoya, Japan, for welding 300mm thick steel plates. The application of laser cutting is also developing to higher power, and the power of laser cutting machine continues to rise, reaching 8~12kW.

Better: laser output beam quality requirements more and more better, fiber laser beam quality problems have reached 100,000 watts of single-mode. In the past year, the brightness of fiber lasers, disk lasers, and directly affecting semiconductor lasers has been greatly improved.

Short wavelength: The output wavelength of the laser covers the shorter band, and the short wavelength laser has been widely used. Many advanced manufacturing processes require cold processing, for example, in the manufacture of smartphones, many times need to use short-wavelength, short-pulse ultraviolet laser processing. Short-wavelength laser has been widely used in surface marking, semiconductor wafer processing, drilling, cutting and other fields.

Faster: The laser pulse speed is getting faster and faster, and ultrafast lasers have made rapid development. They are more simple structure, more convenient operation, lower cost, more stable performance, out of the laboratory, into the industrial application.

Future potential market

The growth of new applications in the future market has always been a topic of concern.

Laser cleaning: With the enhancement of environmental awareness, a variety of environmental cleaning technologies came into being, laser cleaning technology is one of them.

Laser cleaning can use the high energy laser beam and the material culture to be removed from the surface of the workpiece material to promote each other, instant evaporation or stripping, no need to use a variety of learning chemical cleaning agents, green development pollution-free. Can be used to remove paint, oil, oxide layer, cleaning screw, rust, weld cleaning and so on.

Laser cleaning has a huge market space in microelectronics, construction, nuclear power plants, automobile manufacturing, medical care, cultural relics protection, steel rust and mold decontamination, automobile manufacturing, construction and other fields.

Metal 3D printing market: Metal 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, typically uses selective laser cladding (SLM) technology, which uses laser energy to melt metal powder layer by layer to finally make the desired shape.

In 2016, more than 1,000 SLM systems were sold, primarily using fiber lasers, disk/CO2 lasers, and femtosecond fiber lasers in the power range from 30 watts to more than 1 kilowatt. The precision of 3D printing is also getting higher and higher, and the resolution of the printed fine structure has reached the micron level.

Lidar: The LiDAR market will grow steadily over the next five years. The major drivers of market growth are from the areas of drones, autonomous vehicles, robotics, military and security.

Laser lighting: Part of the corporate market for laser lighting is automotive laser lighting, mainly through automotive headlights. BMW, Audi and other well-known brand car manufacturers have adopted laser lighting management systems. Another important part of the product market is safety laser lighting, such as providing a warning sign for people riding in the night environment.