High power single-mode fiber laser and its application to metal and non-metal materials

Abstract

The power level of Yb doped fiber lasers which operate in continuous wave mode has been increasing in recent years and various kinds of applications using high power single-mode fiber lasers that oscillate in 1microns wavelength range were reported. Single-mode fiber laser that has excellent beam quality of less than 1.1 M² value with kW class average power can be focused to tens of microns diameters and its optical power density at the focus point is more than 1×10⁸ W/cm². In this power density range, the interaction between 1microns laser light and matter, not only metal materials but non-metal materials, is completely different from that of lower level. The power density initiates laser processing of copper that has relatively high reflectivity at this wavelength range among metals and alumina base plate with over 90% reflectivity. Other interesting material which can be processed by this energy level is carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP). On the other hand, for industrial application and further processing investigation, modulation speed is one of the most important factors because that relates to processing speed and precise control of laser energy input to a material. In this paper, we report on the power dependence of some material processing of copper wafer welding, alumina base plate scribing, and CFRP cutting using single-mode fiber laser which is capable of over 1kW peak power operation and has rapid switching time below 5 micro seconds.