The next big thing in laser manufacturing

The laser at 50: cutting, drilling, welding, materials processing – the laser is ubiquitous in modern manufacturing. Andreas Tünnermann, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering, Germany, reckons that the “next big thing” in laser manufacturing will be the ultrafast fibre laser, a technology that’s been successfully transferred out of the research laboratory and on to the factory floor.