In the current field of precision processing in the manufacturing industry, a beam of green light is triggering a technological revolution. Gongda Laser, with its unique high-power green laser products, has not only broken the technological monopoly of international giants, but also provided new impetus for the upgrading of China's manufacturing industry.

Laser technology plays an increasingly important role in modern industry due to its high precision and high efficiency.

In the industrial field, lasers are widely used in cutting, welding, marking, engraving, cleaning, cladding and 3D printing and other processing technologies. With the transformation of manufacturing industry to high-end and intelligent, fiber lasers have continuously increased their penetration rate in industrial production due to their excellent performance and strong applicability, and their market share has continued to grow. According to the "2024 China Laser Industry Development Report", the scale of China's fiber laser market will reach 13.59 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%, and is expected to grow to 14.53 billion yuan in 2024.

China's laser industry has gone through a process from technology introduction to independent research and development, and has achieved technological breakthroughs and localization in many fields. At present, China's laser industry has formed a complete industrial chain, including upstream optoelectronics and chip-related companies, midstream laser and related mechanical systems, CNC system manufacturers, and downstream laser processing equipment manufacturers.

Among them, green light laser, as an emerging high-tech product, its localization process will bring new growth points to the domestic laser industry.

Compared with traditional infrared lasers, green lasers, with their specific wavelength of 510-560nm, have unique application advantages in the processing of high-reflective materials such as photovoltaics, lithium batteries, 3C electronics, and semiconductors. Green light is equivalent to a thinner tool head, with better processing effects. For example, there is almost no spatter when welding copper, and the processing size can be down to the micron level.

With the rapid development of the new energy industry, especially in the fields of new energy vehicles, aerospace, etc., the demand for high-quality, high-stability and high-efficiency welding light sources has increased rapidly. Green lasers have broad market prospects due to their advantages such as low reflection and high absorption rate in copper material processing.

At present, the leading companies in global green laser technology include Trumpf of Germany and IPG of the United States, which can provide ultra-high power green light sources of more than 3000W and 1000W. In recent years, the domestic market has also emerged with companies represented by Gongda Laser that have mastered the core research and development and production and manufacturing process technology of green lasers, and have begun to emerge in the field of industrial laser processing.

With the development of high-end manufacturing, the demand for high-power green lasers has continued to increase, and the domestic green laser market has maintained rapid growth in the past few years: in 2023, the domestic fiber green laser shipments will be about 800 units, with sales of about 150 million, of which the domestic green laser shipments will be about 500 units, and both shipments and sales have increased, showing a development trend of domestic substitution.

Founded in late 2019, Gongda Laser focuses on the research, development and manufacturing of high-power, short-wavelength fiber lasers. In less than five years, it has launched a series of core products including 50-500W sub-nanosecond green lasers, 100-3000W continuous green lasers, and 10-100W ultraviolet nanosecond pulse fiber lasers. The technical indicators of its products have reached the international first-class level.

Entering the market with green fiber lasers

Dr. Zhang Fan, founder and CEO of Gongda Laser, has 20 years of experience in fiber laser research and development, and has witnessed the process of fiber lasers from the laboratory to industrialization. While working as a senior engineer at the South China Industrial Research Institute, Dr. Zhang saw the broad development prospects of green fiber lasers and gained a deeper understanding of productization.

Zhang Fan believes that in the industrial field of mass production where high-power lasers can meet the needs, fiber lasers have absolute advantages due to their cost-effectiveness, high stability and anti-interference ability. Compared with solid lasers, fiber lasers have greater room for improvement in average power and higher cost-effectiveness. Therefore, the types of lasers currently used in the lithium battery, photovoltaic industry and heavy industrial processing fields of cutting and welding are mainly fiber lasers. Only in scenarios where fiber lasers cannot meet the parameter requirements will there be opportunities for other types of lasers.

Talking about why he chose green light to enter the laser market, Zhang Fan said that there were already a large number of domestic laser companies in the industry at that time, but they were mainly infrared, and only three listed companies (Raycus, JPT, and Inno) achieved industry leadership in their respective business segments.

Zhang Fan used "empty land" to describe the green laser track at that time. "At that time, the field of green lasers could be said to be one of the few empty lands. I thought it was most likely to grow into a big tree if I took root here, so I chose green lasers."

Although green lasers are relatively new in the market, their technical foundation has been fully verified in the laboratory stage.

In addition, because green light has a shorter wavelength, it has the characteristics of less thermal impact, higher precision and higher stability in the welding and cutting processes of commonly used high-reflective metal materials such as copper, gold and aluminum. Therefore, green lasers were the first to be commercialized in lithium batteries, photovoltaics and other industries that use a large amount of copper and aluminum materials.

Zhang Fan said, "Although the replacement cost of green lasers is not low and there is a certain verification cycle, in the long run, all scenarios involving copper-related processing should use green lasers because the wavelength of green light is the best match for copper materials."

Since its establishment, Gongda Laser has been continuously developing and manufacturing different types of high-power green fiber lasers, and has continued to explore and develop industry applications and scene applications. Compared with the common infrared lasers in the industry, the green lasers produced by Gongda Laser have shorter wavelengths, higher power, and smaller spot sizes. They have the advantages of high stability, concentrated energy, and high electro-optical conversion efficiency. They can meet various high-precision and high-efficiency manufacturing needs and are one of the current research hotspots in the laser field.

According to reports, Gongda Laser's green laser products are mainly divided into high-power pulsed green lasers mainly used for photovoltaic and lithium battery precision processing and high-power continuous green lasers mainly used for lithium battery welding. In June this year, Gongda Laser launched the latest 2000W near-single-mode continuous green fiber laser, which has been tested and verified by end customers, becoming the world's first laser manufacturer capable of providing 2000W near-single-mode continuous green fiber lasers. "Single-mode" means better beam quality and smaller focused spot, which can achieve more delicate welding and higher processing accuracy, better control the spatter generated during green light welding, and has obvious advantages in the precision processing of high-reflective materials such as copper.

Turning laboratory theories into mass-producible industrial products

Zhang Fan said that although the theory of green lasers is mature enough, Gongda Laser has come a long way from mature theories in the laboratory to commercial industrial products that can be mass-produced. "I think this is also the reason why scientists have a low success rate in starting a business, including me who underestimated the importance of engineering capabilities at the beginning: for productization, the previous laboratory stage is only the first few steps in the hundred steps of industrialization."

Zhang Fan believes that the difficulty in mass production of lasers lies in the fact that R&D personnel do not have a complete and systematic concept of mass production when designing solutions. Therefore, Gongda Laser chooses to let quality and production personnel participate from the project establishment and R&D stage, so that the initial design solution has strong mass production.

Before the emergence of Gongda Laser, Germany's TRUMPF disk lasers and the United States' IPG fiber lasers basically monopolized the global green laser market. In 2021, Gongda Laser began to promote the R&D and production conversion of products, and will gradually achieve mass production after 2022.

Currently, green light lasers have a natural and absolute advantage in matching with high-reflective materials such as copper. However, manufacturers need to consider whether the benefits brought by the improvement of product yield and production quality after using green light lasers can cover the costs of replacing the original solutions.

Therefore, Gongda Laser's market strategy is to start with high-end applications to meet the needs of fine processing that cannot be achieved by infrared lasers.

Gongda Laser is the third manufacturer in the world to launch high-power green lasers after TRUMPF and IPG. With the continuous advancement of the scale production and localization of green lasers, the performance of domestic green lasers has been continuously improved and the cost has been continuously reduced. Gongda Laser continues to penetrate the sinking market and expand the market share of green lasers.

Zhang Fan said that with the maturity of domestic related industrial technologies, the company has gradually achieved the full application of domestic components and ensured the performance and stability of products. This transformation not only helps to reduce costs, but also recognizes and actually supports the capabilities of the domestic supply chain.

It is worth noting that due to the high absorption rate of green light by high-reflective materials, under the same processing effect, the actual working power and corresponding energy consumption required by green lasers will be greatly reduced, which is in line with the trend of green manufacturing, and overseas customers are more willing to accept it. With the trend of domestic lithium battery and photovoltaic companies actively going overseas and grabbing overseas markets, this advantage will be more prominent.

Implement quality management in every aspect of the product

Each laser needs to go through a long inspection period by customers, from initial cooperation with proofing to machine samples to small batch production to verify the yield. These steps are all to consider the stability of the laser. Because once the production line is turned on, especially for large terminal industries such as photovoltaics and lithium batteries, the loss caused by the impact of the laser far exceeds the value of the laser itself.

How to ensure the stability of the laser has become a must-do question for every laser manufacturer.

Based on the IS09001 quality management system, Gongda Laser uses the IPD process to carry out project management for each product, closely coordinating various departments such as design and development, engineering manufacturing, and quality management to achieve better product quality and faster development process. "From TR1 project establishment, TR2 plan formulation, TR3 small batch verification, TR4 conversion to TR5 mass production, each link has corresponding process documents, and quality control is carried out by quality. We believe that as long as every step in the process is controlled well, the stability of the final output product can be guaranteed." For example, the continuous green laser developed by Gongda Laser has a maximum power of 3000 watts, "reaching the global cutting-edge level and basically meeting more than 90% of the current lithium battery welding needs."

Focusing on "quality manufacturing", Zhang Fan said very clearly: "For me, quality manufacturing means being the world's number one in the category of high-power fiber green lasers that Gongda Laser is good at. Foreign leading laser companies have a long history and have high brand awareness and market share worldwide. It is difficult for a single laser company to compete with them, but there are dozens or hundreds of fiber laser companies in China now. Relying on the domestic supply chain advantages and rich application soil, they can catch up and surpass in various sub-categories."

In terms of new product research and development, Gongda Laser will develop ultraviolet and deep ultraviolet lasers based on green light and in the direction of shorter wavelengths, mainly used in material processing in the semiconductor field. It is expected to officially launch high-power ultraviolet lasers of the 100-watt level next year; at the same time, further optimize costs and enhance product stability.

In the green light laser segment, Gongda Laser has achieved leadership in terms of technical indicators. Although there is a certain gap in product market size and brand recognition compared to TRUMPF and IPG, as Gongda Laser continues to delve deeper into short-wavelength laser technology, continues to launch innovative products, and gradually establishes brand influence among downstream customers, it is believed that Gongda Laser will contribute greater strength to "quality manufacturing in a great country" in the future.