In the past few years, there are two main ways to promote the application of laser technology: the first is to break through the technical bottleneck and continuously increase the output power, resulting in a significant decline in the price of a single-watt laser, and greatly reduce the cost of use; The second is the emergence of new laser technology and application technology tends to mature, while bringing new applications to expand the market demand.
The power increase can be regarded as a vertical development, while the new laser can be regarded as a horizontal development of laser technology. We’ve talked a lot about power boost, but not here. Focus on the future development of new laser, the past 10 years, from fiber pulse to fiber continuous, from single mode to multi-mode, from green light to UV, disk, semiconductor, picosecond, femtosecond and other laser types have been discussed and studied. After femtosecond laser, what is the new technology route of Laser? This is a problem that has perplexed me for two years.
Some people say it is an attosecond laser, but an attosecond laser is a hot research, the world has not yet mature commercial attosecond laser finished cases. These two years, the blue laser rises gradually, get the attention of the personage of the trade. This is a new type of laser, its appearance can bring about what changes to laser application, the development of Blue Laser has a future?
Development of overseas blue laser
A blue laser is a light source with a wavelength of about 450 nm and an output spectrum in the blue band. The industrial blue laser is primarily a semiconductor laser, which is known to have been made earlier by semi-conductor laser’s DILAS, which in April 2015 introduced a blue light visible light laser diode system at 450 nm, the maximum output power 25 watts, using fiber core diameter of 200 m or 400 μm, can be extended to 100 watts, can be used for material processing.
Also in 2015, Shimadzu of Japan announced the successful development of a fiber-coupled high-brightness BLUE IMPACT direct-diode laser, a BLUE-light gallium nitride-type laser diode, which is the world’s first complete production of laser processing light source. In late 2015, the product won the “Super-manufactured parts award”, a symbol of Japan’s cutting-edge technology. By February 2019, Shimadzu had announced a partnership with Osaka University to develop a 1KW semi-conductor laser.
Early blue laser power is very small, did not get much attention until 2017, people only realized to develop high-power blue laser. In general, the blue laser diode can only be output as a single unit, in the realization of high power output, the beam size will increase, it is difficult to maintain a small beam size while achieving high power output. This problem can be solved by selecting the coupling method, that is, preparing multiple blue light sources, so that the light emitted through the lens converge into an optical fiber. Laser output through optical fiber, so not only easy to operate, but also by connecting multiple laser units together, can easily increase the laser power output.
Backed by a three-year government research project, EFFILAS, Germany’s Laserline has produced the first blue light kilowatt-class semi-conductor laser, with a 500-watt prototype in 2018, the world’s first 1KW commercial blu ray semi-conductor laser was unveiled at the Shanghai Light Expo in 2019. By early 2020, the company has announced the realization of 2KW blue laser products for commercial use.
Nuburu is also a leading manufacturer of blue light lasers, starting with semi-conductor laser in 2017, followed by 150W in 2018 and 500W in 2019, by 2020,1500 ultra-high-brightness blue lasers will be available. In December 2020, NUBURU announced the completion of a new $20 million round of financing.
In February 2020, media reported that Panasonic had successfully launched the world’s most powerful blue laser, with a reported power of 135W. A high-quality output beam is produced by using the multi-wavelength beam combination (WBC-RRB- technique on direct diode lasDDL(DDL). With this technique, the power can be adjusted while maintaining the beam quality by simply increasing the number of laser sources. The resulting laser intensity maybe two orders of magnitude higher than that of a conventional blue laser system. This technology was partly developed by TeraDiode (TDI), which was acquired by Panasonic in 2017. TDI is a company that produces high power and high brightness semiconductor laser and is the only manufacturer in the world capable of making semi-conductor laser for metal cutting.
Development of blue laser in China
By 2020, Chinese research institutions and companies have followed suit, launching semi-conductor laser. In May, Shenzhen Lianying Laser announced the launch of China’s first semi-conductor laser, the power is 1KW level, wavelength is 455nm, in welding copper belongs to heat conduction welding, welding process without spatter, pool stability, after welding seam level, appearance is good.
At about the same time, the semi-conductor laser, which has long focused on third generation semiconductor light emitting materials, successfully developed an industrial grade blue light.
In September, the Guangdong Guangdong Guangdong Guangdong Guangdong Guangdong guangdong-hong Kong-macao Bay Area Institute of Hard Science and Technology Innovation announced the introduction of industrial grade blue semiconductor direct output laser, which has an output power of 500 watts, power stability less than ± 2% , and compact structure, suitable for welding, cladding, 3D printing of high reflective materials. In order to ensure product performance, the Academy also launched 5 Blue Laser Recruitment Enterprises, to provide a free one-year trial.
Also in September, at the Shanghai Industry Fair, Wuhan Ruike laser, the country’s leading fiber laser maker, announced the launch of the semiconductor laser. At that time: the blue laser welding absorption rate is higher, is about 10 times the infrared band. A 500-watt blue laser can be found on the Reeker website. The laser is used for welding gold, silver, copper, Non-ferrous metal batteries, 3C, and alloys.
