"A fiber laser recently developed by Raycus Laser, a technology company in Wuhan Optics Valley, has set a new world record for the beam quality of fiber lasers of the same level." On May 13, Yan Dapeng, a national outstanding engineer and vice chairman and chief engineer of Wuhan Raycus Laser Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Raycus Laser"), revealed that the laser is called a single-mode 10,000-watt fiber laser, with an output power of up to 10.1kW and a beam quality factor M value as low as 1.13. At the recent Munich Shanghai Optical Expo, this Wuhan-made laser attracted global attention.
Lasers are known as "the fastest knife, the brightest light, and the most accurate ruler" and are the core components of industrial machines. Their technical level is related to the development of high-end manufacturing industries. Previously, its core technology has been monopolized by a few developed countries. Not only that, in the field of high-power fiber lasers, the "Raman effect" is also a worldwide problem that plagues the global industry. Yan Dapeng explained that the "Raman effect" is similar to the "traffic jam" that light energy encounters during optical fiber transmission. During the transmission process, part of the optical signal undergoes energy deviation and loss accumulation, which not only directly limits the further improvement of the laser output power, but also causes local energy accumulation, which can easily damage the optical fiber and the entire equipment. It is a key point that hinders the iterative upgrade of high-power and ultra-high-power lasers.
Raycus laser optical engineers are debugging the core parameters of the laser.
In order to overcome this global problem, Raycus Laser's scientific researchers did not blindly follow the conventional technical route of foreign octagonal optical fiber. Instead, they took a new approach and aimed at circular modified optical fiber. After five years of scientific and technological research, they successfully developed a single-mode 10,000-watt fiber laser. Yan Dapeng said that this is equivalent to laying a low-loss, high-efficiency "highway" for lasers. This core technology won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2024. After successful technical research, in the past two years, Raycus Laser has gone all out to transform technology into products, moving scientific and technological achievements from the laboratory to the production line, and from "bookshelf" to "shelf".
"The practice of making products has proven that this technological breakthrough has brought about a significant reduction in production costs." Yan Dapeng said that traditional high-beam quality 10,000-watt lasers mostly use "same-band pumping" technology, with complex structures and reliance on imported core components, resulting in high costs and inability to be applied to general industrial production on a large scale. This new laser uses "direct pumping" instead of "co-band pumping", and the price of the core device semiconductor pump source has dropped from the early import price of 200,000 yuan/1000W to the current domestic cost of 2,000 yuan/1000W.
In the laboratory demonstration area of Raycus Laser Company, the reporter saw that the appearance and size of the single-mode 10,000-watt fiber laser were similar to those of a school podium. According to laboratory staff, the product has a compact body, stable operation, and reduces production costs by nearly 50%.
Raycus Laser Overcomes "Stuck Neck" Technical Catalog List.
At present, Raycus Laser has built an independent and controllable industrial system for the entire chain, realizing self-research, production and use of the entire chain from core materials, key components to complete laser machines. Yan Dapeng said that the new laser launched this time, with its excellent beam quality, stable operating performance and cost advantages, is expected to be widely used in national economic fields such as automobile manufacturing, new energy, 3D printing, and long-distance precision processing.
