Shenzhen Gongda Laser Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Gongda Laser") is a high-tech intelligent manufacturing enterprise, a national high-tech enterprise, and a specialized and new enterprise. The company has been focusing on the research and development and manufacturing of high-power short-wavelength fiber lasers, and is committed to becoming an international first-line and domestic leading fiber laser supplier.

At present, Gongda Laser has completed the research and development and production of a series of core products such as "50-500W sub-nanosecond green laser", "100-3000W continuous green laser", and "200-1000W infrared nanosecond pulse fiber laser". The products are widely used in lithium batteries, photovoltaic cells, high-reflective metal 3D printing, semiconductors and other fields.

As a leading domestic high-power green laser company, Gongda Laser has won wide recognition from the industry and investors for its excellent technical strength and market performance. The company has been committed to creating high-quality green laser products and promoting the development of China's laser technology. Recently, "Laser Manufacturing News" had the honor to discuss and exchange with Mr. Huang Guoxi, deputy general manager of Gongda Laser, on the company's products and future development, allowing us to have a deeper understanding of Gongda Laser.

Huang Guoxi, Deputy General Manager of Gongda Laser

Laser Manufacturing Information Hello, Mr. Huang! Thank you very much for accepting our interview with Laser Manufacturing News. First of all, please briefly introduce the development history and current status of your company.

Mr. Huang：Shenzhen Gongda Laser was established in December 2019. It currently has more than 150 employees, of which more than 30% are R&D personnel. It mainly focuses on the development and application of high-power short-wavelength fiber lasers. The short-wavelength fiber laser products promoted by Gongda Laser are currently mainly distributed in the green light band, covering continuous, quasi-continuous, nanosecond, and picosecond pulses in the time domain. With the market application in photovoltaics, lithium batteries, 3C industry, and 3D printing, the demand for high-power green light has gradually increased. In 2023, Gongda Laser's sales performance has made great progress, with revenue exceeding the 100 million yuan mark. In the domestic fiber green light laser segment, it occupies more than 80% of the market. After several years of product iteration and application accumulation, it is expected to reach a new level in 2024.

Laser Manufacturing Information We understand that Gongda Laser's products include high-power short-wavelength (green and ultraviolet) fiber lasers. What are the characteristics of ultraviolet and green lasers in precision processing, and what are their application areas?

Mr. Huang：Compared with infrared lasers, green light ultraviolet has a shorter wavelength and higher single-photon energy. It can achieve cold processing of materials with larger molecular bond energy to obtain better processing quality and is widely used in the field of precision processing.

High-power fiber green lasers, in precision machining applications, mainly embody several characteristics such as high precision, high efficiency, good stability, and high cost performance. Because of its shorter wavelength, some materials have a higher absorption coefficient for green light, and it has incomparable advantages over infrared in welding and cutting processes of commonly used high-reflective metal materials such as copper, gold, and aluminum. Especially in the processing of high-reflective metals, high-power green lasers have obvious characteristics of small thermal impact, high precision, and better stability compared to currently commonly used infrared lasers. For example, in the application of 4680 large battery negative collector multi-layer pole ear welding, high-power green light has obvious yield advantages.

Compared with ordinary solid-state nanosecond UV lasers, UV fiber lasers have higher average power, shorter pulses, and better long-term stability, which can achieve better efficiency and results in processing. Gongda Laser currently launches fiber UV products with an average power of 5-50W. The maximum power of the laboratory prototype reaches 100W, which is mainly used in the field of high-efficiency precision processing. UV lasers have shorter wavelengths and have been widely used in precision processing of organic thin film materials, such as efficient cutting of PI films and ink removal from mobile phone cameras.

Figure 1 500W quasi-continuous green laser

Laser Manufacturing Information What are the company's key R&D products in the near future? What industries are they used in? What are their unique advantages?

Mr. Huang：The company's main research and development directions are:

1. Continue to delve deeper into the field of high-power green fiber lasers and expand in the direction of higher power and narrower pulse width.

2. Expand to shorter wavelengths and continue to explore the ultraviolet and deep ultraviolet directions. For example, the single-mode 300W ultraviolet laser project is our key project in 2024. We strive to complete the prototype by the end of the year and enter the application testing stage. The 300W single-mode ultraviolet laser is expected to achieve breakthrough application progress in the semiconductor lithography industry.

In addition, the industrial-grade femtosecond laser project launched by the company at the beginning of the year is also progressing rapidly, and the company is striving to complete the prototype at the beginning of next year and gradually launch it into the market. The femtosecond laser with large pulse energy, hundreds of femtoseconds and high stability is expected to play a key role in the TGV process of glass substrates for advanced semiconductor packaging in the future.

Figure 2 1000W single-mode continuous green laser

Laser Manufacturing Information At present, what is the market size of the company's ultraviolet lasers and green lasers? What is the market development potential?

Mr. Huang：Currently, the company's fiber ultraviolet laser sales account for less than 10%, and fiber green lasers account for more than 80% of the company's revenue. With the rapid growth of the photovoltaic and 3C industries in the past 10 years, the green laser market has continued to grow. In particular, in recent years, driven by the demand for cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the lithium battery and photovoltaic industries, the market has expanded rapidly and entered a period of rapid development.

At present, due to cost factors, most of the sales and applications of UV lasers are still dominated by solid-state UV lasers, and fiber-optic UV lasers account for a relatively small proportion, not exceeding 20%. Fiber-optic UV has better stability and higher cost-effectiveness, so it has room for future development.

Laser Manufacturing Information Did your company encounter any technical difficulties in the process of developing lasers?

Mr. Huang：Dr. Zhang Fan, the founder of the company, has been deeply engaged in the field of fiber lasers for more than 16 years. He has carried out a lot of technical exploration and accumulation in the early stage. After the company was established in 2019, it started the process of high-power fiber laser productization. For more than four years, we have been continuously developing and manufacturing different types of high-power green fiber lasers, and at the same time, we have been exploring and promoting the industry applications of these types of lasers. Before Gongda Laser, there has never been a company in China that focuses on high-power green fiber lasers, nor has there been large-scale industry applications. At this level, we can be regarded as pioneers and pioneers in this niche field. In these four years of arduous exploration, we have indeed encountered many difficulties. High-power polarization-maintaining narrow-linewidth fundamental frequency lasers, due to their various nonlinear effects, limit the average power, and bring serious safety impacts; ultra-high power ultraviolet lasers damage laser crystals and extremely high requirements for optical components, which brings huge challenges to our industrialization. For the related difficulties encountered, we have developed some core modules and components based on the underlying principles after years of trial and accumulation, and solved the related problems from different directions, and obtained relatively satisfactory results.

As we continue to pursue several key indicators such as higher average power, higher single pulse energy, higher peak power, while maintaining excellent beam quality, difficulties still exist, but we are still on the road, constantly moving towards the future.

Laser Manufacturing Information Please summarize the achievements your company has made in 2023 and talk about the new planning ideas for 2024?

Mr. Huang：Achievements in 2023:

1) The company's sales performance has achieved a huge breakthrough compared with the previous year, crossing the 100 million yuan mark;

2) In the domestic high-power optical fiber green light application market, OUDA Laser has come from behind and surpassed the imported manufacturer IPG to take the lead;

3) Gongda’s pulsed optical fiber green light has been used in large quantities in the photovoltaic field with remarkable results; it has also made important application progress in the lithium battery, semiconductor, 3D printing and 3C industries.

4) OUHK’s kilowatt-level high-power optical fiber green light is gradually used in the lithium battery industry and 3C industry, and has achieved remarkable results in the welding of copper materials.

The company's main focus in 2024:

1) Continue to promote the use of 1000-3000W continuous green light for high-reflective material welding, metal 3D printing, laser annealing and other applications;

2) Promote the development and application of 4680 large battery related supporting processes (welding & cutting) and laser light sources, help 4680 large batteries improve yield, reduce costs and increase efficiency, and quickly implement;

3) Cooperate with leading terminal customers to develop photovoltaic lithium battery laser processes, develop matching lasers, and implement cutting-edge applications.

Figure 3 3000W multimode fiber green laser

Laser Manufacturing Information In recent years, green lasers have made substantial progress in commercial applications, with Germany's TRUMPF and the United States' IPG occupying the vast majority of the global market share. How do you view the development of the green laser market?

Mr. Huang：High-power green lasers are scarce resources due to their high technical difficulty, and there are few matching products in China. Indeed, the early green laser market was mainly divided by imported manufacturers IPG in the United States and TRUMPF in Germany, which have technological advantages.

IPG, the global leader in fiber lasers, and TRUMPF Laser, the leader in disk lasers, started early in high-power green lasers, especially in the two directions of photovoltaics and lithium batteries, and made outstanding contributions to the application of high-power green lasers.

As a pioneer in domestic high-power green lasers, Gongda Laser has adopted different technical routes to realize the productization of high-power fiber green lasers, providing strong support for China's high-end manufacturing. Due to the huge domestic market and complete localized supply chain, domestically produced high-power fiber green lasers have more advantages in stability and cost-effectiveness. Photovoltaic, lithium battery and other industries are key industries for national development, and the requirements for the proportion of domestically produced production equipment are getting higher and higher.

The photovoltaic and lithium battery industries are global key industries for solving future energy problems, with huge market shares. In the early stage, many production and processing equipment used infrared laser as the processing light source. With the continuous increase in application demand, the application market space of high-power green light will be huge in the future.

In summary, Gongda Laser is full of confidence in the future.

Source: Laser Manufacturing News, April 2024