This book focuses on the mechanisms of how laser light is produced, guided, and focused for materials processing, and these are explained in an easy-to-understand language for practical use. It emphasizes a basic understanding of the principles necessary to run lasers in a safe and efficient way and provides information for quick access to laser materials processing for laser users. The book exhibits the following features: • Provides simple explanations and descriptions of complex laser material interaction mechanisms to help readers understand relevant effects during laser beam irradiation of materials. • Explains the main high-power laser materials processing methods, giving hints to get started with the processing and how to avoid imperfections. • Focuses on high-power laser applications that are explained in an accessible, descriptive way with practical explanations and minimal formulas. • Teaches how to measure laser beam characteristics and how to install and handle laser equipment correctly. • Gives practical advice on typical equipment arrangements and parameter ranges. This practical handbook serves as a guide for students studying production technologies to learn about laser processes, and for engineers who want to start working with laser processes safely and quickly.

High power lasers of either the gas or solid state type can be used to generate a focal spot with a diameter of about a tenth of a millimetre and a power density of up to 100 Mio W/cm2. With these intensities all materials can be heated up rapidly, leading to fast melting, violent evaporation or even plasma formation. So laser beams can be utilized for various processing tasks, such as transformation hardening, cutting and ablation or welding and cladding or even rapid prototyping. With these processes, important advantages are achieved compared to conventional tools such as high processing speed due to the high concentration of energy and high quality of the processed workpiece without deformations due to the small overall heat input to the workpiece that corresponds to the small spot diameter. All these advantages finally result in strongly reduced production costs, which is the main reason for a world-wide substitution of conventional processes and other beam tools by laser technology.This monograph offers a great insight into the operation principles of high power laser sources, the phenomena of interaction of laser beams and materials and the mechanisms of the various production processes with lasers ? thus enabling production engineers and others to make optimum use of the benefits of laser technology and to understand the technical properties and the physical limitations of this most recent technology (especially in comparison to conventional tools and other beam tools), and providing a sufficient basis for the understanding and use of future developments in this area.

High power lasers of either the gas or solid state type can be used to generate a focal spot with a diameter of about a tenth of a millimetre and a power density of up to 100 Mio W/cm2. With these intensities all materials can be heated up rapidly, leading to fast melting, violent evaporation or even plasma formation. So laser beams can be utilized for various processing tasks, such as transformation hardening, cutting and ablation or welding and cladding or even rapid prototyping. With these processes, important advantages are achieved compared to conventional tools such as high processing speed due to the high concentration of energy and high quality of the processed workpiece without deformations due to the small overall heat input to the workpiece that corresponds to the small spot diameter. All these advantages finally result in strongly reduced production costs, which is the main reason for a world-wide substitution of conventional processes and other beam tools by laser technology.This monograph offers a great insight into the operation principles of high power laser sources, the phenomena of interaction of laser beams and materials and the mechanisms of the various production processes with lasers — thus enabling production engineers and others to make optimum use of the benefits of laser technology and to understand the technical properties and the physical limitations of this most recent technology (especially in comparison to conventional tools and other beam tools), and providing a sufficient basis for the understanding and use of future developments in this area.

The complete guide to understanding and using lasers in material processing!Lasers are now an integral part of modern society, providing extraordinary opportunities for innovation in an ever-widening range of material processing and manufacturing applications. The study of laser material processing is a core element of many materials and manufacturing courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level. As a consequence, there is now a vast amount of research on the theory and application of lasers to be absorbed by students, industrial researchers, practising engineers and production managers. Written by an acknowledged expert in the field with over twenty years' experience in laser processing, John Ion distils cutting-edge information and research into a single key text. Essential for anyone studying or working with lasers, Laser Processing of Engineering Materials provides a clear explanation of the underlying principles, including physics, chemistry and materials science, along with a framework of available laser processes and their distinguishing features and variables. This book delivers the knowledge needed to understand and apply lasers to the processing of engineering materials, and is highly recommended as a valuable guide to this revolutionary manufacturing technology. The first single volume text that treats this core engineering subject in a systematic manner Covers the principles, practice and application of lasers in all contemporary industrial processes; packed with examples, materials data and analysis, and modelling techniques

This volume discusses the basic principles necessary to understand lasers, explains laser interactions with materials, and surveys the wide variety of industrial applications of the major laser types, covering in detail the operating mechanisms of carbon dioxide, Nd:YAG, and excimer lasers. It presents lasers as manufacturing tools rather than laboratory devices.

Advances in High-Power Fiber and Diode Laser Engineering provides an overview of recent research trends in fiber and diode lasers and laser systems engineering. In recent years, many new fiber designs and fiber laser system strategies have emerged, targeting the mitigation of different problems which occur when standard optical fibers are used for making high-power lasers. Simultaneously, a lot of attention has been put to increasing the brightness and the output power of laser diodes. Both of these major laser development directions continue to advance at a rapid pace with the sole purpose of achieving higher power while having excellent beam quality. The book begins by introducing the principles of diode lasers and methods for improving their brightness. Later chapters cover quantum cascade lasers, diode pumped high power lasers, high average power LMA fiber amplifiers, high-power fiber lasers, beam combinable kilowatt all-fiber amplifiers, and applications of 2 μm thulium fiber lasers and high-power GHz linewidth diode lasers. Written by a team of authors with experience in academia and industrial research and development, and brought together by an expert editor, this book will be of use to anyone interested in laser systems development at the laboratory or commercial scale.