Final Report Summary - LIFT (Leadership in Fiber Technology)
Executive Summary:
The outcome of the LIFT project will establish international leadership for Europe in the science, application and production technologies for material processing by fibre lasers through the development of innovative laser sources. Major advances beyond the state of the art are at hand: The cold-ablation fibre laser, based on ultra-short pulses, will open an entirely new market (100 mill.€ p.a.) e.g. for laser processing of ceramics. The visible RGB fibre laser offers novel treatments in eye surgery and can be the first high-brilliance source for laser projection displays (15 mill.€ p.a.). New future-oriented manufacturing tools based on higher-power pulsed fibre lasers (80 mill.€ p.a.). The high-reliability laser for large-scale manufacturing with High Speed Laser Remote Processing - means a new level of performance for 2kWatt materials-processing lasers with raised MTBF to 50.000 hours (accessible market 1 bill.€ p.a.). The Horizontal integration and networking in Europe’s high brilliance laser industry in this project enables a greater market share for existing applications, creates new areas of exploitation for manufacturing, and builds a European network of component suppliers, laser manufacturers, universities and research institutes.
Although Europe today is the leader in industrial laser processing, continuous innovation and adoption of novel technologies is required to defend this position. Fibre lasers represented only 10% of the market in 2007, but the growth rate of this sector is significantly greater, more than 25% per year. The market share of fibre lasers is expected to double by 2010 and double again by 2013, when fibre lasers will account for more than 30% of all industrial lasers sold each year. Much of this market growth will occur at the expense of CO2 lasers. In order for Europe to defend its position as technology and manufacturing leader in industrial laser processing, it is imperative for European manufacturers to take the Leadership In Fibre laser Technologies.
Fibre lasers are a disruptive technology for materials processing. Originating from the low power world of information and communications technology (ICT), these lasers have been developed to meet the most challenging applications in the high power world of material processing. In industrial markets, the fibre laser has many advantages over the conventional CO2 or solid-state laser. They are smaller, more efficient, have a high beam quality, a lower cost of ownership. Over the typical lifetime of a source, the total cost of ownership of a fibre laser is estimated to be approximately half the cost of a CO2 laser and a third of the cost of a YAG or disc laser.
A main selling point for fibre lasers in this market is that they have a wall-plug efficiency of up to 30% compared with typically less than 5% for conventional solid-state lasers and 20% for diode-pumped solid-state lasers. This energy saving results in a significant cost reduction in the industrial environment and points the way to higher power lasers.
In result of the LIFT project the consortium developed 5 different types of fibre laser, from cw-multi kw system and cw-yellow to pulsed fibre lasers in the range from ns – fs pulse-duration. Together with the final fibre laser products many components for high brightness beam sources have been developed like fibres, isolators, pump diodes etc. For different kinds of application, it was also necessary to develop scanning heads for large area applications.
Project Context and Objectives:
This large-scale collaborative project will establish an internationally leading position for Europe in this strategically important field, substantially advancing the position of Europe in the science, application and production technologies of fibre lasers. In this project the consortium has developed innovative laser sources with intelligent beam delivery systems and dynamic beam manipulation, in CW and pulsed kilowatt laser systems and ultra-short pulsed laser sources. LIFT enables a greater market share for existing applications, creates new areas of exploitation for manufacturing, and builds a European network of components’ suppliers and laser system manufacturers.
Demonstrations have shown the potential of this technology in domains where there are large existing markets such as high-speed remote cutting and welding, medical diagnostics and treatment, battery manufacturing or where there are large potential markets like solar cell fabrication or cold ablation for ceramics manufacturing.
The study by the “Photonik Forschung Deutschland” organization presents an excellent review of the state-of-the-art in photonic industry and calls the growing sector a “job engine”:
• The German photonics sector (as one example out of the European community) will employ 165,000 people in the country by the end of the decade
• Photonics industry has created around 30,000 new jobs in Germany since 2005, with a similar number set to be added through 2020 as the industry grows at a compound average rate of 6.5% per year. Comparable perspective is anticipated for the EU.
• The study also sizes the global photonics market for 2011 at some €350 billion, up from €228 billion in 2005. The analysts predict “solid growth” for the rest of the decade, and estimate that the 2020 market will be worth €615 billion.
The disruptive nature of the fibre laser technology has “changed the rules”. This project has been strategic for responding to the paradigm shift for continued European leadership in industrial laser technologies. The challenge presented by fibre lasers is also an opportunity. Impacts of the transverse actions in this project will last far beyond the end of the program by building a distributed European infrastructure in fibre laser technologies that can be used to build future fibre laser systems in fields that have not been explored through this proposal. The grant enabled this consortium to play a pivotal role in the development and advancement of laser systems for industrial applications.
Key Applications
The research, development and innovation that constitute the LIFT project led to a new level of high-brilliance laser sources. The results of the consortium work will bring radical advances in three important application areas:
Laser Materials Processing
Health Care Delivery
Cost-Effective Manufacturing of Solar Cells for Renewable Energy
A fibre laser is a laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fibre doped with rare-earth elements. The structure of a fibre laser has been shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: A fibre laser is a system based on components that energize the fibre laser by pumping photons into the fibre gain section, by components that modulate the laser so that pulsed operation can be achieved, by combiners that can efficiently transport optical energy into the laser amplifier as well as a different kind of combiner which extracts the optical laser output from the gain section.
Key Performance Challenges:
CW power greater than 3 000 watts with a mean time between service longer than 50 000 hours
CW fibre laser sources at visible wavelengths
Pulsed femtosecond laser sources with peak power greater than 100 MWatt
Pulsed nanosecond laser sources with pulse energy greater than 10 mJoules
Pulsed laser source with continuously variable pulse-length and duty cycle or with average power greater than 200 watts
Diode pump laser package delivering more that 200 watts at 980nm
Reduction in photodarkening threshold energy by 50%
Holistic Strategy of the LIFT Project
Simply stated, the brilliance of a light source is the quantity of light emanating from a defined area of emission. The brilliance increases when the number of photons increases, and the brilliance increases when the photons appear to be originating from a smaller area, approaching a point. The challenge is to create a light source that appears to emanate from a point, leading to high beam quality, and at the same time increase the number of photons in the light beam, that is, the laser power.
Impact Area 1 – High Brilliance in the Visible and Infra Read
Concept and strategy
Fibre lasers, originating from the low power world of information and communications technology (ICT), have found their way into the two most challenging applications: the high power world of material processing and the medical area (Ophthalmology and Dermatology). The concept of this development work was to increase the brightness of high power, continuous wave fibre lasers in the infrared and in the visible and to develop the right tools for new industrial and medical applications.
Impact Area 2 – High brilliance pulsed sources
Concept and Strategy
Development of common pulsed fibre module capable of both high peak power and high average output power. The pulsed lasers developed here have peak powers of up to hundreds of MW. However the levels of peak power correspond to high intensities that can cause degradation through photodarkening and non-linear optical effects, leading to catastrophic damage.
Impact Area 3 – Components Reliability and Performance
Concept and Strategy
LIFT has emphasized throughout that the pathway to higher brilliance is to design components that can handle higher levels of optical power. However managing the total optical power so that individual components and systems do not suffer damage required R&D to improve reliability.
Thermal management
Degradation reactions provoked by photon energy
Degradation provoked by the intensity of the optical beam
This Impact Area has improved the understanding of both long-term (e.g. photo-darkening) and instantaneous system degradation (e.g. laser diode or fibre component failure due to high optical power levels). It gathered real system reliability data and attempts to quantify the improvement to system reliability obtained through the developments made in the LIFT project.
Impact Area 4 – Beam-shaping and delivery
Concept and Strategy
The first objective of this work package has been to increase the useful optical power at the workpiece by at least 150% compared to the state of the art. This has been achieved by innovative beam handling inside the laser so that higher levels of power can be generated, and by innovation in the beam delivery that combines the laser output so that much higher power is delivered to the workpiece.
The second objective was to dramatically decrease processing time by harnessing the higher beam brilliance and using this to implement remote high speed laser processing. Remote processing means a much higher laser spot velocity at the work piece by the use of scanning mirrors in combination with long focal lengths. This technology can enable the increase of processing speeds by a factor of 10 – 100 compared to conventional laser processing systems using robotic arms.
Project Results:
Please see the attached document.
Potential Impact:
Please see the attached document.
List of Websites:
http://www.lift-project.eu/
Contact:
Fraunhofer IWS Dresden
Dr. Udo Klotzbach
Winterbergstr. 28
01277 Dresden
Germany
Email: udo.klotzbach@iws.fraunhofer.de
Tel.: +49 351 83391 3252
The outcome of the LIFT project will establish international leadership for Europe in the science, application and production technologies for material processing by fibre lasers through the development of innovative laser sources. Major advances beyond the state of the art are at hand: The cold-ablation fibre laser, based on ultra-short pulses, will open an entirely new market (100 mill.€ p.a.) e.g. for laser processing of ceramics. The visible RGB fibre laser offers novel treatments in eye surgery and can be the first high-brilliance source for laser projection displays (15 mill.€ p.a.). New future-oriented manufacturing tools based on higher-power pulsed fibre lasers (80 mill.€ p.a.). The high-reliability laser for large-scale manufacturing with High Speed Laser Remote Processing - means a new level of performance for 2kWatt materials-processing lasers with raised MTBF to 50.000 hours (accessible market 1 bill.€ p.a.). The Horizontal integration and networking in Europe’s high brilliance laser industry in this project enables a greater market share for existing applications, creates new areas of exploitation for manufacturing, and builds a European network of component suppliers, laser manufacturers, universities and research institutes.
Although Europe today is the leader in industrial laser processing, continuous innovation and adoption of novel technologies is required to defend this position. Fibre lasers represented only 10% of the market in 2007, but the growth rate of this sector is significantly greater, more than 25% per year. The market share of fibre lasers is expected to double by 2010 and double again by 2013, when fibre lasers will account for more than 30% of all industrial lasers sold each year. Much of this market growth will occur at the expense of CO2 lasers. In order for Europe to defend its position as technology and manufacturing leader in industrial laser processing, it is imperative for European manufacturers to take the Leadership In Fibre laser Technologies.
Fibre lasers are a disruptive technology for materials processing. Originating from the low power world of information and communications technology (ICT), these lasers have been developed to meet the most challenging applications in the high power world of material processing. In industrial markets, the fibre laser has many advantages over the conventional CO2 or solid-state laser. They are smaller, more efficient, have a high beam quality, a lower cost of ownership. Over the typical lifetime of a source, the total cost of ownership of a fibre laser is estimated to be approximately half the cost of a CO2 laser and a third of the cost of a YAG or disc laser.
A main selling point for fibre lasers in this market is that they have a wall-plug efficiency of up to 30% compared with typically less than 5% for conventional solid-state lasers and 20% for diode-pumped solid-state lasers. This energy saving results in a significant cost reduction in the industrial environment and points the way to higher power lasers.
In result of the LIFT project the consortium developed 5 different types of fibre laser, from cw-multi kw system and cw-yellow to pulsed fibre lasers in the range from ns – fs pulse-duration. Together with the final fibre laser products many components for high brightness beam sources have been developed like fibres, isolators, pump diodes etc. For different kinds of application, it was also necessary to develop scanning heads for large area applications.
Project Context and Objectives:
This large-scale collaborative project will establish an internationally leading position for Europe in this strategically important field, substantially advancing the position of Europe in the science, application and production technologies of fibre lasers. In this project the consortium has developed innovative laser sources with intelligent beam delivery systems and dynamic beam manipulation, in CW and pulsed kilowatt laser systems and ultra-short pulsed laser sources. LIFT enables a greater market share for existing applications, creates new areas of exploitation for manufacturing, and builds a European network of components’ suppliers and laser system manufacturers.
Demonstrations have shown the potential of this technology in domains where there are large existing markets such as high-speed remote cutting and welding, medical diagnostics and treatment, battery manufacturing or where there are large potential markets like solar cell fabrication or cold ablation for ceramics manufacturing.
The study by the “Photonik Forschung Deutschland” organization presents an excellent review of the state-of-the-art in photonic industry and calls the growing sector a “job engine”:
• The German photonics sector (as one example out of the European community) will employ 165,000 people in the country by the end of the decade
• Photonics industry has created around 30,000 new jobs in Germany since 2005, with a similar number set to be added through 2020 as the industry grows at a compound average rate of 6.5% per year. Comparable perspective is anticipated for the EU.
• The study also sizes the global photonics market for 2011 at some €350 billion, up from €228 billion in 2005. The analysts predict “solid growth” for the rest of the decade, and estimate that the 2020 market will be worth €615 billion.
The disruptive nature of the fibre laser technology has “changed the rules”. This project has been strategic for responding to the paradigm shift for continued European leadership in industrial laser technologies. The challenge presented by fibre lasers is also an opportunity. Impacts of the transverse actions in this project will last far beyond the end of the program by building a distributed European infrastructure in fibre laser technologies that can be used to build future fibre laser systems in fields that have not been explored through this proposal. The grant enabled this consortium to play a pivotal role in the development and advancement of laser systems for industrial applications.
Key Applications
The research, development and innovation that constitute the LIFT project led to a new level of high-brilliance laser sources. The results of the consortium work will bring radical advances in three important application areas:
Laser Materials Processing
Health Care Delivery
Cost-Effective Manufacturing of Solar Cells for Renewable Energy
A fibre laser is a laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fibre doped with rare-earth elements. The structure of a fibre laser has been shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: A fibre laser is a system based on components that energize the fibre laser by pumping photons into the fibre gain section, by components that modulate the laser so that pulsed operation can be achieved, by combiners that can efficiently transport optical energy into the laser amplifier as well as a different kind of combiner which extracts the optical laser output from the gain section.
Key Performance Challenges:
CW power greater than 3 000 watts with a mean time between service longer than 50 000 hours
CW fibre laser sources at visible wavelengths
Pulsed femtosecond laser sources with peak power greater than 100 MWatt
Pulsed nanosecond laser sources with pulse energy greater than 10 mJoules
Pulsed laser source with continuously variable pulse-length and duty cycle or with average power greater than 200 watts
Diode pump laser package delivering more that 200 watts at 980nm
Reduction in photodarkening threshold energy by 50%
Holistic Strategy of the LIFT Project
Simply stated, the brilliance of a light source is the quantity of light emanating from a defined area of emission. The brilliance increases when the number of photons increases, and the brilliance increases when the photons appear to be originating from a smaller area, approaching a point. The challenge is to create a light source that appears to emanate from a point, leading to high beam quality, and at the same time increase the number of photons in the light beam, that is, the laser power.
Impact Area 1 – High Brilliance in the Visible and Infra Read
Concept and strategy
Fibre lasers, originating from the low power world of information and communications technology (ICT), have found their way into the two most challenging applications: the high power world of material processing and the medical area (Ophthalmology and Dermatology). The concept of this development work was to increase the brightness of high power, continuous wave fibre lasers in the infrared and in the visible and to develop the right tools for new industrial and medical applications.
Impact Area 2 – High brilliance pulsed sources
Concept and Strategy
Development of common pulsed fibre module capable of both high peak power and high average output power. The pulsed lasers developed here have peak powers of up to hundreds of MW. However the levels of peak power correspond to high intensities that can cause degradation through photodarkening and non-linear optical effects, leading to catastrophic damage.
Impact Area 3 – Components Reliability and Performance
Concept and Strategy
LIFT has emphasized throughout that the pathway to higher brilliance is to design components that can handle higher levels of optical power. However managing the total optical power so that individual components and systems do not suffer damage required R&D to improve reliability.
Thermal management
Degradation reactions provoked by photon energy
Degradation provoked by the intensity of the optical beam
This Impact Area has improved the understanding of both long-term (e.g. photo-darkening) and instantaneous system degradation (e.g. laser diode or fibre component failure due to high optical power levels). It gathered real system reliability data and attempts to quantify the improvement to system reliability obtained through the developments made in the LIFT project.
Impact Area 4 – Beam-shaping and delivery
Concept and Strategy
The first objective of this work package has been to increase the useful optical power at the workpiece by at least 150% compared to the state of the art. This has been achieved by innovative beam handling inside the laser so that higher levels of power can be generated, and by innovation in the beam delivery that combines the laser output so that much higher power is delivered to the workpiece.
The second objective was to dramatically decrease processing time by harnessing the higher beam brilliance and using this to implement remote high speed laser processing. Remote processing means a much higher laser spot velocity at the work piece by the use of scanning mirrors in combination with long focal lengths. This technology can enable the increase of processing speeds by a factor of 10 – 100 compared to conventional laser processing systems using robotic arms.
Project Results:
Please see the attached document.
Potential Impact:
Please see the attached document.
List of Websites:
http://www.lift-project.eu/
Contact:
Fraunhofer IWS Dresden
Dr. Udo Klotzbach
Winterbergstr. 28
01277 Dresden
Germany
Email: udo.klotzbach@iws.fraunhofer.de
Tel.: +49 351 83391 3252
