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Jewelry is a timeless part of human culture

Jewelry is an indispensable part of human life. It is a way of decoration for women who are looking toward beauty and fashion. For men, jewelry was a means of payment because it was used instead of money and was a sign of wealth. As far as almost all jewelry is made of precious materials such as gold, silver, diamond, etc., accurate and high-quality manufacturing is necessary. Modern fiber laser technology advances the jewelry industry and makes the process of its manufacturing easier.

Advantages of fiber laser systems

Fiber laser systems have a great range of advantages:

• it is a reliable and low-cost technology;
• fiber lasers ensure accurate cutting and quite high edge quality;
• laser modules can cut complex shapes in a short time;
• they have a high production ability;
• laser systems meet all the manufacturing requirements.

Possibilities for complex designs

The variety of metal materials for the jewelry industry is not limited due to fiber laser technology. It is possible to cut metals of different thicknesses and create complicated shapes. Laser systems provide a high level of precision, cut flexibility, and productive capacity. The technology expands new possibilities for jewelry designers because now it is not obligatory to use just traditional cutting methods for creating complex forms.

Laser welding systems in jewelry production

Laser welding systems are ideally suited for different metal joining and jewelry repair applications. These lasers have a small size, a portable design, and high welding quality. This type of fiber laser is easy to use, and its design allows for reducing the price so even small companies can afford it.

Fiber lasers as marking machines

Jewelry manufacturers quite often use fiber laser modules as marking machines with a great number of particular advantages that include:

• ability of marking, etching, and engraving different kinds of patterns, alphanumeric code, and even images;
• no need for contact processing that allows saving metal;
• long-lasting use of the marked patterns;
• flexible marking technique of fiber laser systems;
• short time period of processing

Fiber laser systems are more advantageous than conventional CO2 lasers and replace them in the industry market because they ensure a lot of benefits, such as faster metal processing, higher efficiency, high beam quality, low maintenance costs, ability to process highly reflective materials such as copper, etc.

Breakthrough with holmium-infused glass fibers

Holmium-infused glass fibers open the possibility of developing high-powered fiber lasers. Scientists from the USA have presented a new technique that allows designing powerful fiber lasers that are considered to be more efficient and safer for eye surgery due to the application of nanotechnology.

Rare-earth-ion-doped fiber technology

The nanoparticles are applied to produce a “rare-earth-ion-doped fiber” that consists of silica fiber infused with ions of the rare-earth element holmium. This material offers 85% efficiency of fiber laser systems. The operating principle of the laser system is based on a pump source (quite often provided by another fiber laser) that excites the rare-earth ions, which lead to photon emission to create a high-quality laser beam at the desired wavelength.

Efficiency limitations in fiber lasers

The fiber laser technology does not provide 100% efficiency. The energy applied is seen as pump energy, but this does not represent the high-quality laser beam light at the needed wavelength. A much higher quality of light in the fiber laser system is possible to obtain at the specific wavelength; the energy that isn’t converted into laser beam light is wasted and converted into heat.

This loss of energy defines the significant limitation of power scaling and the laser system’s quality, which makes qualities such as efficiency especially important. The doping process from nanoparticles enables fiber lasers to achieve 85% efficiency with a laser system that operates at a 2-micron wavelength (safe wavelength for eye surgery compared to standard 1-micron lasers).

Safety considerations for eye surgery

“The danger arises from the risk of scattered light being reflected into the eye during a laser beam’s operation.” For instance, scattered light from a 100-kW fiber laser operating at 1 micron can result in serious damage to the retina and blindness as well. An “eye-safe” laser system that operates at wavelengths beyond 1.4 microns greatly decreases risks from scattered light.

Role of nanotechnology in overcoming challenges

Nanotechnology allows for overcoming several other challenges. The first is that it protects the rare earth ions from the silica in fiber lasers. “The nanoparticle doping also separates the rare-earth ions from each other, which is helpful because packing them closely together can reduce the light output.” Conventional laser systems operating at 1 micron, applying a ytterbium dopant, are more resistant to these factors.

Introduction to ultrafast fiber laser technology

A team of researchers succeeded in developing the new ultrafast fiber laser technology due to coherent laser beam combination with direct water cooling. The laser system produces an average power that is 10 times higher than that of current high-powered fiber lasers, combining the output of 12 amplifiers.

Overcoming waste heat challenges

This combination allows for fiber laser systems to overcome any challenges presented by the waste heat that they create when emitting laser beam light. Current lasers’ parameters enable them to effectively dissipate waste heat (in the range of a single kW), but the exit beyond that range of power leads to a decrease in laser beam quality.

Performance and specifications

The new fiber laser system emits 10.4 kW average power at 80 MHz repetition, without any decrease in laser beam quality. The operating principle is based on the laser system that “is turned on and optimized channel-by-channel, with each channel performing at maximum pump power.” Additionally, the fiber laser has already been tested and demonstrated 96% combined efficiency with a laser beam pulse energy of 130 μJ and a pulse duration of 250 fs. Thus, the problem of high noise has been overcome in the early stage due to direct water cooling, resulting in a highly reliable laser system.

In the development stage, the fiber laser demonstrated excellent performance at low average laser beam power for deactivated water cooling. When the cooling is activated, the level of noise increases and requires the cooling system. The amplifier layout has been changed, leading to solving the existing problem.

Beam quality and coherent combination

The researchers claim that the new fiber laser technology makes the system close to ideal laser beam quality, which is considered to be equal to 1. It is important because the aim of the development is the solution to solve the heat-induced problem of laser beam quality of individual amplifiers.

Advantages of coherent beam combination

The coherent beam combination makes it possible to unite several high-powered laser beams into one, and the power and beam quality remain the same while increasing brightness. This fiber laser can be used in extreme applications, for example, laser-driven particle acceleration and space debris removal. This laser system is ideal in industrial and manufacturing industries, for instance, in high-speed scanning and ablation cooling.

Finally, the fiber laser system has a sealed housing that prevents it from dust contamination during the operational process.