Infrared Fiber Lasers and Their Applications in Materials Processing

Dear Colleagues,

Progress in laser technology has always been stimulated by the development of new materials. This is also true for fiber lasers. Fiber lasers can be characterized by good quality of the output beam, small dimensions, high efficiency, excellent heat dissipation properties, and very good reliability. Due to these unique features, fiber lasers have been the key enabling technology for many applications. Thus, over the past decades, the availability of fiber lasers with high output beam quality at moderate cost has enabled significant progress in other fields of science, e.g., medicine, materials processing, or environmental monitoring. Spectacular progress has been achieved within the near infrared wavelength range whereby the output power produced by fiber lasers has continuously increased and has reached several kW in the continuous wave (CW) regime.

Recently, significant progress has also been achieved in the development of mid-infrared fiber lasers. The development of fiber lasers operating in the mid-infrared wavelength region can lead to novel material processing applications. For instance, mid-infrared fiber lasers are ideally suited to replace common mid-IR emitters for material processing applications, e.g., CO₂ gas lasers. Furthermore, many important compounds have strong absorption bands in the mid-infrared region. Therefore, lasers operating in this spectral region can potentially provide desirable enabling technology platforms for the development of novel, more compact and reliable materials processing systems. For instance, polymers have strong absorption bands in the mid-infrared wavelength region with a particularly strong absorption band occurring around 3.4 µm, due to C–H bond stretching. Thus, fiber lasers operating close to 3.4 µm could be instrumental to plastic processing systems that weld, cut, or engrave plastic. Water-based materials also have strong mid-infrared absorption bands within the wavelength range spanning from 2 to 10.6 µm. Thus, fiber lasers operating within this spectral region might stimulate progress in the development of novel medical surgery procedures.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to present the state of the art in the field of infrared fiber lasers with a specific focus on applications in materials processing. Thus, we encourage the contribution of papers that cover topics related to this field of research, examples of which include the following keywords.

Papers that address topics not listed above but that are related to the topic of this Special Issue will be given consideration. Thus, we encourage all potential authors to contact the editors prior to manuscript preparation if in doubt as to whether the potential contribution falls within the remits of this call.

Dr. Lukasz Sójka
Prof. Slawomir Sujecki
Guest Editors

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• Mid-infrared fiber lasers
• Materials processing by fiber lasers
• Medical application of mid-infrared fiber lasers
• Mid-infrared Raman lasers
• Novel near-infrared fiber lasers for materials processing
• Optical fibers used for delivering laser beams
• Numerical modeling of novel mid-infrared fiber lasers.