Fiber laser source is one of the core devices of high-end manufacturing equipment. Fiber laser source is in line with the background of industrial manufacturing transformation, and it is highly competent for changing the multidimensional processing and application requirements. The industrialization and scale process is accelerating.
The reason, on one hand the number of kilowatt continuous high power laser localization technology is mature, the emergence of the strength of the fiber laser manufacturers, formed a production scale with competitive power, to ensure adequate supply in the market; on the other hand, the material of fiber laser processing advantages make it popular in the market, more efficient production cost the traditional enterprise high production efficiency, low pain points, so there is a huge market space.
Taking the application of laser cutting as an example, the processing characteristics of fiber laser cutting machine, CO2 laser cutting machine and YAG solid laser cutting machine are compared. The advantages and development potential of fiber laser in laser cutting are explored.

Advantages of low cost and high efficiency fiber laser cutting
(1) Operation requirements and maintenance
CO2 laser for optical path adjustment, and the optical path adjustment effect will influence the cutting quality, so the operator needs to have a certain skill requirements, and the need for maintenance of the external optical path; YAG laser thermal lens effect, need regular maintenance; fiber laser optical fiber transmission, free adjustment, maintenance free, high stability. The operation is more convenient.
(2) Cutting speed and effect
The cutting speed of fiber laser is 2-3 times that of CO2 laser of equal power, especially in metal sheet cutting, the cutting speed of fiber laser cutting machine has obvious advantage in three kinds of laser cutting machine. The optical fiber laser cutting machine has good beam quality, small cutting gap and smooth cutting edge.
(3) Material suitability and application industry
CO2 lasers are more widely applied to materials, while fiber lasers are more suitable for metal materials, such as aluminum and copper, which are more suitable for sheet metal fabrication, 3C appliance industry and new energy industry.

(4) The degree of energy consumption and the comprehensive cost
Fiber laser photoelectric conversion rate of more than 30%, with the power of CO2 laser cutting machine photoelectric conversion rate is about 10%~15%, solid state laser photoelectric conversion rate is 3%. The power consumption of fiber laser is only 20-30% of the same power CO2 laser, and the comprehensive cost is lower.
Optical fiber laser cutting is more precise, focusing focus can reach 25um, small heat affected zone, small cutting seam and small workpiece deformation. As a kind of flexible processing, fiber laser can be combined with the automatic control system, automatic tracking, automatic edge searching, automatic nesting, the production efficiency is greatly improved, the sheet metal cutting is widely used, more excellent performance, can better meet the requirements of precision cutting processing. At present, for the application of sheet metal cutting, fiber lasers have replaced a large number of CO2 lasers and YAG solid lasers. The future development of high power fiber lasers will accelerate this trend.