High-power fiber lasers are having a huge momentum right now as their demand has increased dramatically. They are revolutionizing the industrial material processing markets by offering the best combination of performance, cost-effectiveness, and reliability.

High-power fiber laser systems range from 1 to hundreds of kW average power and are typically used in industrial manufacturing environments.

One typical application of high-power fiber laser systems is sheet metal cutting. These systems have the highest cutting speed and the ability to process a wide range of materials with a single tool, consume less power and provide higher reliability.

In general, all high-power lasers are comprised of an optical gain medium housed in a cavity. Besides, a laser system can have one or more amplification stages to further increase the optical power.

Certain criteria that make laser designs different from each other include the nature of the gain media, the optical pumping method of the gain method, the design of the cavity, components, the optical system to deliver the laser beam to the application, and the coupling among these components.

The choices of a laser designer for all these parameters determine the main characteristics of the laser, including performance that involves power, efficiency, stability, polarization, wavelength, beam quality, and more. This ultimately helps determine which laser is best suited for which application.

However, as the use of fiber lasers is increasing continuously, engineers and specialists have become more equipped and knowledgeable to identify the shortcomings of existing designs. For instance:

High-power fiber lasers are highly sensitive to back reflections that lead to frequent process disturbances, prevent you from processing certain metals or finishes, and can even cause laser instability or damage.

Thus, to protect high-power fiber lasers from all these consequences, high-power isolators are implemented.

What are high-power isolators?

High-power isolators are the optical isolators that protect the light source from scattered light and back reflections while allowing the high-power light signal to transmit in only one direction.

In the market, you will find optical isolators of different types and not all of them can be used with systems that implement high-power lasers. So, it is critical that, for high-power fiber lasers, you choose only the best quality high-power isolators as they are designed with the capability to remain stable even in industrial environments.

The use of quality high-power isolators makes high-power fiber lasers highly reliable because they offer very high isolation and low insertion loss.

You can find both PM and non-PM high-power isolators with power conditions of CW or Pulse lasers and come with the power handling capability of 5W to 150W and even higher.

At DK Photonics, we offer PM and non-PM high-power isolators with different wavelengths such as 1080nm, 1064nm, 1030nm, 980nm, and more. If you also need high-power isolators for your system, project, or research, please feel free to get in touch with us.