20 Watt "Pulsed" Fiber Laser

The fiber laser is made from a long optical fiber, which has good thermal properties and allows easy integration of all-fiber components and pump diodes, instead of using crystal rods, gas tubes, and conventional optics.  The design is generally more efficient, more compact, and more reliable that conventional lasers, and the life cycle cost is more competitive compared to solid-state and even gas lasers.  Fiber laser products are now used in applications as varied as product marking, engraving, razor blade welding, and metal cutting. Lasers Global is the preferred source for supplying laser systems with the new and maintenance free fiber lasers.

Fiber lasers are ideally suited to the types of environments typical in the medical device, computer, and electronics industries. The lasers compactness, elimination of complex cooling systems, excellent constant beam properties, long forgiving focal lengths, and rapid warm-up make them ideal for applications in this type of manufacture. Cutting stents and seam welding pacemakers and implantable batteries for medical applications are good applications. The spot welding of flexures and suspension assemblies, such as read/write heads in computer manufacturing and welding pressure transducers are also appropriate for laser processing.

The major benefits of fiber laser technology include the following: high wall plug efficiency greater than 27 percent, long diode life 50,000 plus hours, maintenance free, the same unit can cut weld or drill, low beam divergence, and low cost of ownership. These lasers are compact and mobile and they offer high processing performance because they do not require warm up, there is no spot size change with power, and they have a large dynamic range of power output.

Fiber lasers currently are available at power levels to 25 kW where they have demonstrated speed and penetration depth results never before achieved. This laser power level has greatly expanded applications for laser cutting and welding. The lower power fiber lasers are used for laser engraving, marking, and intricate cutting of sheet metal products.