Frequently Asked Questions

• Electrical efficiency of greater than 30% wall-plug efficiency vs. 1.5% to 2% for lamp-pumped YAG
• Cost savings from no replacement of flash lamps: Long life telecom grade single emitter diodes lifetimes greater than 100,000 hours used in fiber lasers vs. flash lamps
• Fixed spot size and spot profile at all power levels
• Maintenance-free or low maintenance operation
• Minimal spare parts
• Air-cooled or minimal cooling requirements
• Substantial reduction in laser footprint
• Longer working distance
• No requirement for alignment
• No warm-up/instant on

Yes, there are many other system builders who have successfully built turn-key systems using fiber lasers for a number of years.  IPG now also offers complete laser systems and sub-systems. IPG can supply a list of integrators and OEMs that can provide a turn-key solution that match the customer requirement.

IPG now supplies a range of plug and play beam delivery components and machining heads; these can be quoted either with laser equipment or separately. We offer:

• Custom fiber lengths up to 100 m
• Different process fiber core diameters, wide choice of BPP matching the application
• Internal shutters, beam couplers, multi-port switches and shearers
• Collimators, termination optics
• Processing head/ scanner options

IPG offers the longest warranty in the industry: the standard warranty for fiber lasers is for a full 3 years after purchase. IPG also offers extended warranties for up to 10 years. Contact your sales person for details.

IPG has extensive application development facilities at 14 locations around the world. In addition, various institutes and universities in North America, Europe and Asia are available for advanced research in applications development with fiber laser technology.

These statements come from people not familiar with fiber laser technology. Our multi-kilowatt low mode fiber lasers are not susceptible to back reflection issues if the appropriate delivery fiber is utilized. With single-mode lasers they in most cases do not have a problem, unless highly reflective materials are processed. However, if the back reflection is too high, the units sense the reflection and automatically shut down. The addition of an isolator eliminates this issue. IPG have numerous units in the field cutting and welding highly reflective material such as copper and aluminum on a production basis.

Diode bars (AKA as monolithic laser diode arrays) are made up of multiple emitters arranged in parallel in one crystal. Because of the high heat density in the junction area and strong thermal crosstalk between the emitters comprising the bars diode arrays must be mounted on copper with soft solder (Indium) and be water-cooled. High-speed and high pressure water flow through tiny gold coated channels in the copper (called micro-channel coolers) provides aggressive cooling. However the water in the system must be kept extremely clean and be PH neutral as these channels are prone to failure due to cavitation and erosion in a relatively short period of time. Keeping water quality to the specification is extremely challenging task in any, especially in industrial, environment. Copper heatsink and diode bar semiconductor are very dissimilar materials, including coefficient of thermal expansion. Under real world operating conditions, frequent on-off cycles, the performance of bars tends to deteriorate much faster than under constant driving current which bar manufacturers use mostly to characterize their devices.

The other source of frequent bars’ failure is in the semiconductor diode bar itself; lifetime of the bar is usually determined by the reliability of its “weakest” emitter. In order to improve performance and to boost heatsinking bars are often get attached to micro-channel coolers with high heat conductive soft solder, indium. Under high driving current operation indium is known to migrate through bar metallization into semiconductor material thus causing its sudden instantaneous failure.

Many manufacturers of diode bars pro rate the warranty based on hours used. IPG have always used single emitter diode laser pumps manufactured entirely in-house, these are mounted on a heat sink with the same coefficient of thermal expansion as the diode chip. IPG uses telecom-qualified hard solder which is free of electro-migration defects. Depending upon the size of the fiber laser, IPG diodes are either air-cooled with high speed fans or are water-cooled through stainless steel pipes beneath the heat sink. There is no direct contact with water coolant. The diode light is delivered via fiber and is delivered directly to the active medium and spliced thus eliminating an air to active medium interface that can be a source of contamination. The life of the single emitter diodes is directly related to the current they are operated at. All industrial IPG fiber laser diodes are run at a current level where the predicted end of life (MTBF) is > 100,000 hours of operation. IPG Photonics diodes are not pro-rated and are covered for the complete warranty period of the fiber laser or amplifier.

IPG Photonics tests 100% of their diodes before they are certified for a laser or amplifier. Duration of the test generally is longer than 1,500 hours when diodes are operated at stressed conditions, greatly elevated temperature and current. If the diodes pass this test with no drop off in power they are certified for usage in our devices. Whether the diode is used for a 10 kW fiber laser for materials processing or a broad band fiber amplifier for telecom, similar procedures are followed. IPG is now the largest manufacturer of single emitter multi-mode diodes with the most extensive diode test facility in the world. With over 10,000 high power fiber lasers in use in production applications around the world, some of which have been in operation for over 10 years, IPG has the experience and statistical data to support its statements regards diode lifetime.

There are three main reasons:

• Many of the components used by IPG are not available on the open market or do not meet the stringent requirements required for high power fiber lasers.
• Vertical integration allows IPG to better optimize components for our unique systems, to respond quickly to customer requests and to bring product to market rapidly.
• Finally, it allows IPG to closely control cost to maximize the benefit to our customers.

It is quite simple. With a fiber laser the procedure is to image the output of the fiber on the work piece. The spot size is equal to the fiber diameter x the magnification ratio of your collimator and final focus lens. For example, if the fiber diameter is 50 microns and you use a 60 mm focal length collimator and a 300 mm final focus lens the final spot size is SS= 50x 300/60= 250 microns. The fiber diameter, collimator and final focus lenses can all be changed to obtain the appropriate spot size. The spot size will not vary as a function of power over the complete dynamic range of 5% to 105% of rated power. With a single mode laser the spot size at the work will be Gaussian and with a low order mode laser top hat.

The same fiber laser can do cutting, welding, drilling and cladding. Many customers have purchased a fiber laser with a 2-way, 4-way or 6-way beam switch. For example, one leg will have a 100 micron fiber for cutting, a 200 micron for welding and 400 or higher for cladding or annealing. The power can be changed to a different level and switched to a new delivery fiber in a matter of milliseconds. Delivery fiber can support multiple work stations of up to 200 meters apart.

The answer is simple – the design of fiber lasers generates less heat and manages the heat they generate effectively. The quantum defect (that is the difference between pump and emission energy) is lesser for a Ytterbium diode-pumped fiber laser (pumped at 980 nm) than a Nd:YAG diode pumped laser (pumped at 808 nm). Also, the optical to optical conversion efficiency of fiber laser is typically 70-80%, as compared with approximately 4% for lamp pumped YAGs, and approximately 40% for diode-pumped YAGs and disk lasers. Because the light is always contained in a fiber, there are no additional sources of the loss inside the laser cavity.

Users can save significant savings from using fiber lasers in their production. The amount you can save depends upon many things including your current process, materials, production environment, electrical and labor costs. Here are some of the savings:

1. Higher Wall-plug Efficiency:Fiber lasers have unrivaled efficiency when compared to existing conventional laser technologies:

Energy Savings Calculator

1. Cooling:The efficiency of the fiber laser also contributes to lower cooling requirements, which contributes to lower electrical usage. Lower power fiber lasers require only air-cooling. Higher power fiber laser require water-cooling that is generally more simple and less costly than for equivalent alternative laser technologies. Cooling also depends upon your particular production environment.
2. Consumables/Replacement Parts:Because of the highly efficient design of fiber lasers (better thermal management) and the use of telecom-grade single emitter pump diodes in our fiber lasers, you can save on replacement parts (such as lamps and diode bars), labor and production down time. Many lamps and diode bars used in YAGs have estimated lifetimes of 2,000 hours and 20,000 hours, respectively. These are a fraction of the MTBF of IPG’s single emitter diodes of > 100,000 hours which mean that for the life of the fiber laser, you should not have to replace the diodes. In the all solid-state fiber-to-fiber design of IPG’s lasers, you save even further because there are no optics to adjust or maintain, such as resonators mirrors, crystals, fluids and filters, as in conventional lasers.
3. Maintenance:Fiber lasers require no or low maintenance, depending on the output powers and other factors, as compared to conventional lasers. There are no optics to align and no warm up-times, as well as consumables/replacement parts. As a result, you can save substantial sums on maintenance.
4. Capital costs:With fiber lasers, the same laser can cut, weld and drill, allowing you to lower your investment costs as compared to purchasing and maintaining different lasers and laser systems for each of these functions.
5. Tax Savings:

Section 179 of the US tax code allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment and/or software purchased or financed during the tax year. That means that if you buy (or lease) a piece of qualifying equipment, you can deduct the FULL PURCHASE PRICE from your gross income. It’s an incentive created by the U.S. Government to encourage businesses to buy equipment and invest in themselves.  See the latest information on Capital purchases, bonus depreciation in Section 179.

Now is the time to purchase an IPG fiber laser, fiber laser system or retrofit your old laser source with a new energy-efficient fiber laser. The U.S. Government has sent some stimulus your way in the form of the Section 179 deduction; please consult Section 179 website for more details as available.

Disclaimer: This is not tax advice. Consult your tax consultant for tax advice and the applicability to your business and circumstances. Any advice contained in this document was not intended to be used, and cannot be used, by you (or any other taxpayer) to avoid penalties under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended.

• IPG was the largest maker of laser sources at the end of 2015 (measured by total sales).
• IPG was the largest maker of laser sources at the end of 2015 (measured by total sales less service related revenues).
• As a result of the growing acceptance of IPG’s all solid-state fiber lasers across numerous industries and applications, IPG’s net sales went from $185.9 million in 2009 to $901.3 million in 2015 representing a compound annual growth rate of 30%.
• IPG has over 1 million sq. feet of manufacturing space in the US, Germany, Italy and Russia.
• IPG has sales and service centers in the U.S., Canada, Germany, the U.K., Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Russia, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and India. Contact Us
• IPG has over 4,000 employees.
• IPG is listed on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “IPGP”.