As we all know, the rapid development of fiber lasers in recent years is constantly eroding the market share of CO2 lasers, especially in the field of metal processing. In a few years, the main position of CO2 lasers has ceased to exist. At the moment when products such as fiber lasers, disc pointers, semiconductor laser pointer, etc. are beginning to gain popularity, CO2 lasers seem to be beginning to withdraw from the stage of history. So, is the old laser technology such as CO2 laser really time to “retire”? But in fact, it’s not.
“In fact, the application market of CO2 lasers is not getting smaller and smaller, but growing.” At this year’s Munich Shanghai Optical Expo, Dr. Zhang Yongfang, general manager of American Chase Laser, said, “It is undeniable that fiber lasers Development does have a huge impact on some of the CO2 laser application markets, but it is also undeniable that there are still many applications on the market that other types of lasers are not competent, only CO2 lasers can be used, such as some non-metal processing applications At the same time, CO2 lasers are constantly opening up unprecedented new applications.”
The unique wavelength of the CO2 laser makes it the only choice for processing some non-metallic materials. One of the simplest application cases is the coding of the production date and other information on the beverage bottle. In the past, this information was usually printed on the beverage bottle with ink. This method is not environmentally friendly and costly, but now the coding of this information is CO2 lasers are increasingly used to achieve clean, environmentally friendly, and no ink consumption. Fiber lasers are not competent for this job. There are many similar applications that can only be achieved with CO2 lasers. “At present, our main focus is on applications that cannot be achieved by other lasers and can only be achieved with CO2 lasers.” Dr. Zhang Yongfang said, “In addition to the market In addition to some traditional applications, we are constantly developing new and unprecedented applications.”
He highlighted three new applications of CO2 lasers. The first is the manufacture of fiber lasers. Although fiber lasers have snatched a lot of market from CO2 lasers, but now CO2 lasers can participate in the manufacturing process of fiber lasers, then it can also benefit from the growth of the fiber laser market. Dr. Zhang said that high-power fiber lasers have extremely strict requirements on the purity of the fiber. Processing the fiber by the traditional flame method may bring some impurities into the fiber. Therefore, many customers now use CO2 lasers to process the parts in the fiber laser. , Such as pulling fiber, fiber connector, etc. This has extremely high requirements for the stability of parameters such as the wavelength and power of the CO2 laser.
The second application is to produce extreme ultraviolet light. In the lithography process of semiconductor manufacturing processes, most of the past decades have been realized by deep ultraviolet lasers with a wavelength of more than 100 nanometers. However, with the development of Moore’s Law, more and more circuits need to be scribed on the chip. The finer and finer it is, this requires a laser with a wavelength of about 10 nanometers to complete this task. “So customers use our CO2 laser to generate plasma to generate extreme ultraviolet light at 13.5nm.”
Another new application is dental surgery. “This is also a brand-new application that we have just broken through after two years of research.” said Dr. Zhang Yongfang, “our latest HPP ultra-high pulse laser is specifically aimed at this application market.” Using green laser pointer to perform dental soft tissue surgery has long been achieved, but it is always a problem to use laser to replace the dentist’s drill to drill holes in the hard tissue of the tooth. This type of application first requires special wavelengths of 9.3 μm and 9.6 μm. At the same time, it requires that the pulse rise and fall be very fast, and the time that the laser interacts with the tooth cannot be too short. “Now our latest HPP ultra-high pulse laser has been able to meet the needs of dental hard tissue surgery. This product will be expected to bring revolutionary changes to medical treatment. Obviously this is a huge market with great potential. ”
Chase Laser has been focusing on CO2 lasers for nearly two decades. “We have several different technologies to achieve the stability of wavelength, power, frequency and other parameters. At the same time, we can also achieve some special wavelengths other than 10.6μm. These are our core advantages.” Dr. Zhang Yongfang said. The fierce and even brutal market competition has allowed CO2 lasers to see a new dawn in the market again.