The adoption of laser processing technologies for manufacturing provide the ability to process components with good repeatability, restricted heat and minimal distortion on all high-volume production environments. However, widespread adoption will reply on the development of higher power laser solutions at lower cost than existing technologies in order to revolutionise industrial processes in terms of speed, quality and reduced material and environmental costs.
The benefits of such developments to the EU will come in the form of faster more economic production, reduced use of harmful chemicals such as those used for chemical etching and securing high-value jobs in manufacturing via globally competitive production processes.
A very high average power kW laser providing ultra-short pulses with excellent beam quality will be developed and brought to the market at highly competitive costs enabling widespread industrial uptake.
By harnessing the unique characteristics of patent protected tapered double-clad fiber amplifiers power-scaled multichannel laser, unparalleled high-power beam qualities, M2<1.1 and pulse energies of 2.5-250µJ will be achieved.
Using state-of-the-art highly stable laser diodes as seed lasers allowing parameter flexibility by ultrafast electrical control of pulse duration and repetition rate will enable a broad range of high-power laser processing application requirements to be met.
An extremely stable advanced all-fiber based configuration allow development of a compact ultrashort pulse laser system. A newly-designed delivery fiber utilising cutting-edge technology of high purity glass material fabrication will be used to capable of handling the very high-power ultrashort pulses, preserving beam quality over several meters distance.
Pioneering technology based on 3D nano-imprint lithography will be exploited to for advanced beam shaping elements to elongate voxels. Together these will provide laser pulse delivery via patented polygon scanner technology capable of handling high-power pulses at speeds of up to 1.5 km/s.
These will enable demonstration in automotive and renewable energy sectors of ultrafast 3D ablation, low-thermal welding of dissimilar metals and faster cost-effective cutting of ultra-hard materials. Exploitation in the form of high-power laser processing systems will immediately follow, benefitting from the unmatched performance data and detailed cost benefit and investment case analysis performed.
