In recent years, as the industrial field has been accelerating in the direction of high-end and intelligent, the advantages of the fiber laser pointer have gradually emerged, and the market penetration rate has also been rising. At present, the market share of fiber lasers in the industrial field has exceeded 50%, which is the absolute king in this field. According to data from the OFweek Research Center, global industrial laser revenues have increased from $2.34 billion in 2012 to $4.88 billion in 2017, and the market has doubled.
Laser pointer equipment is indispensable in the manufacturing of intelligent equipment, and it is also one of the key players in China's manufacturing to become high-end and intelligent. Compared with traditional processing equipment, laser equipment has higher processing capability, higher precision and more improved processing efficiency.
At present, common lasers on the market include CO2 lasers (gas lasers), YAG lasers (solids), fiber laser pointers, semiconductor lasers, and the like. Due to their different working characteristics, there are also significant differences in their respective application areas. For example, CO2 lasers are more suitable for processing natural materials, such as leather, plastic and other materials with relatively low hardness. In addition, CO2 lasers are widely used in medical applications. However, due to its large size, complicated structure, and difficult maintenance, applications in some fields have gradually been replaced by fiber lasers with better comprehensive characteristics.
Through the above data comparison, we can see that the advantages of fiber laser in processing performance, cooling mode, and processing materials are all in line with actual processing needs.
Fiber lasers are known as third-generation lasers and have a wide range of applications. Including laser fiber communication, laser space long-distance communication, aerospace, industrial shipbuilding, automobile manufacturing, laser engraving, laser marking, laser cutting, printing rolls, metal non-metallic drilling / cutting / welding (brassing, quenching, Cladding and deep soldering), military defense security, medical instrumentation, large infrastructure, and pumping sources for other lasers.
Fiber lasers are accepted in such a wide range of fields, mainly due to their advantages in many aspects, such as compact structure, high photoelectric conversion efficiency, high reliability, good laser pointer beam quality and so on. As the related demand continues to grow, the competitive advantage of fiber lasers in the high-power market is increasingly prominent.
Laser technology originated in the 1960s and is one of the four new inventions in the 20th century that are synonymous with atomic energy, semiconductors, and computers. From the discovery of scientific theory to the practical application, it takes a long process. In the last century, Einstein first proposed the photon hypothesis and explained the theory of photoelectric effect. Later he proposed the theory of stimulated radiation, which laid the theoretical foundation of laser technology. . It is a pity that Einstein had passed away for five years until Theodore Mehmann invented the world's first ruby laser pointer on July 8, 1960.
A fiber laser is a laser that uses an optical fiber as a pumping medium. The world's first glass laser is a fiber laser. However, few people know that just one year after Theodore Mehman successfully manufactured a ruby laser, the Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences subsequently produced the first ruby laser in China, laying the foundation for the rise of the Chinese laser industry. The foundation.
Due to the strong demand for laser pointer equipment in China's processing and manufacturing market, foreign manufacturers represented by COHERENT, IPG and SPI are actively involved in the Chinese market, and together with Chinese manufacturers, they are playing a vast domestic processing and manufacturing market. The United States is the first country to use fiber lasers in manufacturing. Among the top five manufacturers in the world's laser industry, Coherent, IPG and II-VI are from the United States. IPG has been the global leader in fiber lasers. In 2017, its main business income was US$ 1.409 billion, a year-on-year increase of 40.02%. Thanks to the rapid growth of the global fiber laser processing market, IPG's market performance has achieved rapid growth in recent years.