It’s thirty years ago already! In 1988, I was responsible at the machine tool manufacturer Trumpf for designing the CO₂ lasers. We integrated the compact TruFlow lasers into our machine tools, and used them to cut metal sheets. Back then, we thought that at most fifty percent of the possible applications for lasers as a tool had been identified – far from it. In close collaboration between research institutes and the industrial sector, we are successfully coaxing new properties from the laser beam. And thus the laser continues its inexorable advance into additional application categories.

Today, the solid-state laser has almost totally superseded the CO₂ ­laser when it comes to machining sheet metals. It has proved to be a sturdy, ­easy-to-handle radiation source. The direct-diode laser, in particular, has a high level of efficiency, and takes us another step further towards energy-economical “green production”. This goal is not helped by the trend towards using lasers with ever-higher power ratings. But do we really need progressively more laser power? In my opinion, not necessarily! We have to understand the application processes better. At Trumpf, for example, we have succeeded in cutting one hundred percent faster with the same laser power while using seventy percent less cutting gas (cf. p. 11). This process improvement is a persuasive example of how much potential still remains to be tapped in many applications for lasers.

“My” CO₂ laser is at present also taking on a new lease of life. It is one of the key components for EUV lithography, with which the electronics industry exposes wafers for progressively higher-performance chips. For this purpose, 50,000 solder droplets per second have to be hit twice each by CO₂ laser pulse – unimaginable!

There’s a current fascination with 3D printing in metal. Here, too, the ­laser is the tool of choice – whether it’s for generation in a powder bed ­(laser metal fusion) or from the nozzle (laser metal deposition): Lasers are the ideal tools in the era of Industry 4.0 and decreasing batch sizes (cf. Interview, p. 18).

What will the world of manufacturing look like in thirty years’ time? One thing is certain: Lasers will indubitably continue to gain in importance. San Francisco is again hosting the Photonics West, a conference and trade fair for up-to-the-future trends themed around photonics and light as a tool. Experts are there exchanging news and views on the trends of tomorrow, and mapping out where the journey is going to take us. Visitors here will gain the information they need to at least conjecture what the future might look like. My colleagues in the VDW Board and I are hopeful of hearing plenty of auspicious news for the sector.

Yours,

Heinz-Jürgen Prokop

More informations on the january edition of the Laser Technik Journal click here.