A comparison between novel fiber laser cutting methods and conventional fiber laser fusion cutting

Abstract

Fiber guided lasers climb from their early days at telecommunication technology to nowadays such diverse fields as biotechnology, astronomy, medicine and material processing has been almost stunning. The invasion of new generation high power lasers to the material processing segment will inevitably happen in following years. Fiber guided laser applications will take their place not only in cutting and welding, but also in micro processing and in other processes where high precision with high power intensity is needed.This paper compares laser cutting with single-mode and multi-mode fiber lasers in quality and process point of view. Single-mode fiber laser cutting tests were performed with 200 W and 1 kW lasers and multimode cutting tests were done with a 5 kW fiber laser. These high brightness lasers were used for thin sheet (up to 3 mm) high precision cutting and the results of these experiments are presented.Fiber guided lasers climb from their early days at telecommunication technology to nowadays such diverse fields as biotechnology, astronomy, medicine and material processing has been almost stunning. The invasion of new generation high power lasers to the material processing segment will inevitably happen in following years. Fiber guided laser applications will take their place not only in cutting and welding, but also in micro processing and in other processes where high precision with high power intensity is needed.This paper compares laser cutting with single-mode and multi-mode fiber lasers in quality and process point of view. Single-mode fiber laser cutting tests were performed with 200 W and 1 kW lasers and multimode cutting tests were done with a 5 kW fiber laser. These high brightness lasers were used for thin sheet (up to 3 mm) high precision cutting and the results of these experiments are presented.