Properties and Prospects of High Brightness Solid State Lasers

Abstract

AbstractThe new generation of solid state lasers like disc and fiber lasers showed an extraordinary quick development with respect to power, beam quality and price. It is shown that recent technology enables welding with a considerable lower energy consumption than for conventional gas metal arc welding. Besides the efficiency, the most important feature is the beam quality, which can be used for remote applications and welding at high speed. on the other hand, some challenges have to be solved, like thermal distortion of the beam shaping optics, humping and low homogeneity of the welds.