High Power Nd-Lasers for Industrial Applications

Industrial applications of high power lasers means material processing. Two lasers are mainly involved in this field, the CO2-and the Nd-Laser. Solid state lasers make about one third of the turnover in material processing laser-systems, and among them more than 90% Nd-lasers. A broad variety of cw and pulsed solid state lasers is on the market as summarized in table 1. Due to higher efficiency and improved crystals solid state lasers of output powers up to 600 Watts are now available. In the labs 1 kW were realized, 2 kW are possible and multikilowatt systems are envisaged in the EUREKA solid state laser program. Those systems may compete CO₂-laser for several reasons, compiled in table 2, if beam quality can be improved. Beam quality is beside others the most important parameter in material processing and a crucial disadvantage of high power systems at the moment.