Recent developments of solid state and diode lasers for materials processing

摘要

With the laser beam as a thermal tool, the characteristics of a particular process, e.g. heating, melting or vaporizing of materials, are essentially determined by the balance of energy fluxes in the interaction zone. With respect to the laser parameters, therefore, the process type depends on the intensity to be realised. Apart from the instantaneous delivered power, its maximum value is inherently determined by the beam's focussability, i.e. the beam quality. The volume resp. mass of material that can be treated per unit time - meaning accessible dimensions and/or values of processing speed - is governed by the mean value of power. Hence, the feasibility of a particular laser to be used for just one or for variou processes stems from those properties. That is why it has become practise to discuss suitable or competitive devices along their inherent properties beam quality - measured by the beam parameter product - and mean power. Typical values of some systems that are commercially availble or are under development are summarized in Fig. 1.