Table of Contents
Composition and Key Applications of Fiber Lasers
Fiber lasers have an active medium made up of an optical fiber, which is doped with special rare-earth components like ytterbium, erbium, dysprosium, etc. A huge bandwidth and effectiveness of these components allow for cheaper and more compact fiber laser components. This, in turn, allows the production of moderately cheap fiber lasers. Fiber lasers have a variety of applications, such as nonlinear imaging, microscopy, tissue ablation, micro and nanosurgery, and more.
Advantages and Technological Progress
Fiber lasers offer multiple advantages that are often crucial for certain applications and determine the popularity of fiber lasers. Fiber lasers offer an extraordinary surface-to-volume ratio. Fiber optic technology has been rapidly developing for the past 30 years, resulting in significant progress in the field of fiber lasers. Lasers based on the fiber optic technology have been renovated into multimodal and single varieties with ultraviolet to far-infrared wavelengths that display high-power levels, adjustable repetition rate, and short pulse duration that is present in femtosecond fiber lasers.
Femtosecond Fiber Lasers and Industry Benefits
Generally, femtosecond fiber lasers operate at wavelengths from 1.0 μm and 1.5 μm. Femtosecond fiber lasers, like other types of fiber lasers, offer lower cost of ownership, eco-friendly technology, and high beam quality. These qualities make femtosecond fiber lasers highly desirable for multiple fields of application. The growing trend of green engineering through multiple industries has made these lasers a smart choice for marking and cutting applications. Fiber lasers are easy to automate and are energy proficient, which makes them a better substitute for traditional means of marking, such as ink-based printing and chemical etching.