Roadblocks remain for fibre lasers

17 Mar 2009

Growth continues in materials processing, but the full potential of fibre lasers is not yet known.

strong growth

The worldwide market for fibre lasers has grown by an impressive 42% over the last three years, and reached $300 million in 2008 according to Fibre Lasers 2009 published by Optech Consulting.

The most important application area is materials processing, where fibre lasers have achieved a market volume of $210 million and now account for 70% of the total worldwide market for such lasers. Nevertheless, more development work will be needed before fibre lasers can replace current technology in many applications in materials processing, medical therapy, information technology, and defence.

"Materials processing comprises many different applications, each of which requires its own set of laser parameters, and not all of which suit present fibre lasers," Arnold Mayer of Optech Consulting told optics.org. "For example, micro-processing can involve thin films of all kinds, photoresists, semiconductors or metals. This needs a wide range of laser parameters, pulses, wavelengths and average power levels. Alternatively, sheet metal cutting can involve many different thicknesses and materials, 2D or 3D operations, and different speed requirements. Materials processing is far from being a homogeneous market."

As a result there remain some roadblocks to the wider adoption of fibre lasers for certain operations. "In flat sheet cutting, which is the biggest single application in materials processing, fibre lasers operating at 1 micron wavelengths have proven to have several advantages for cutting thin sheets," commented Mayer. "But they cannot at present be used for inert gas assisted cutting thicker sheets, because the quality of the resulting cut is not good enough. Today, many users use a single machine for a range of materials, so this is a problem and a barrier to wider adoption."

The solutions to such roadblocks may lie in improving the fibre laser itself, but also in the process technology used to implement them. "It might be as simple as using higher powers, although this will have cost implications," said Mayer. "But it might also be that problems will be solved by an improved process technology, in present or new parameter regimes."

Some obstacles will potentially remain difficult. "In certain pulse regimes, fibre lasers have a problem with photo darkening and this is not an easy problem to solve," said Mayer. "Today the solutions might be beyond us but these things need time. The full potential of fibre lasers and their process technology are not yet known. This is still a new technology, and as always there is a lot of room for new development."

The report is based on the results of the workshop Fibre Laser Markets, Key Challenges and Opportunities, held by the European Photonics Industry Consortium, EPIC, on 6th November 2008 in Dresden, Germany. For further information visit www.optechconsulting.com.