Osram Opto Semiconductors has been working for many years on high-power lasers for special applications such as metal processing using welding robots in the automotive industry. Now they are presenting impressive results in laser bars’ performance and efficiency from the latest EKOLAS project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Together with partners Laserline, Heraeus, Fraunhofer ILT, Fiberware, and Welser Profile, Osram Opto have worked on various assignments in the project EKOLAS. The main aim was to develop highly efficient infrared laser bars with outstanding output powers and to demonstrate them in industrial materials processing. The EKOLAS project, completed in February 2020, led to an infrared laser bar with an impressive maximum output of 400 watts in continuous wave operation. With an output of 300 watts, the bar sets a new standard with an efficiency of about 70% in the wavelengths of 1000 and 1020 nanometers.
“We are very excited to achieve, and in some cases even exceed, all of our targets in this project,” says Sebastian Hein, EKOLAS Project Manager at Osram Opto. “The key to success was the development of innovative software tools for simulating the electro-optical properties of the lasers, which take into account the thermal distribution, temperature-dependent material properties and mode-dependent wave propagation in the resonator. These tools considerably accelerated and simplified the necessary test runs, making a fundamental contribution to the results of the project.”