The principle of resonator construction

The laser consists of a laser-active medium (solid, liquid or gas), an pump source as well as two mirrors (rear mirror, output coupler).

The laser-active medium is excited from an energy source. This energy is converted into a laser beam.

The beam is reflected backwards and forwards in-between both mirrors.

The result of this is that every time the beam passes through the laser-active medium more "light" is emitted (stimulated emission) and this causes the beam to be amplified (light amplification).

A portion of this beam is decoupled and this decoupled beam creates the actual laser beam.

Lasers are used in the following sectors:

• Material preparation for:
  marking, cutting, welding and drilling
• Measuring technology for:
  holography, measuring speeds
• Medicinal branches
  Eye operations

The development of the laser began in 1960. Many more types of laser that used different laser mediums and wavelengths were developed in the following years. As a result of this variety, lasers are used as a tool in more and more branches of industry and science. Due to the special type of beam generation used, the laser beam has the following characteristics as opposed to "conventional" white light:

• reduced beam divergence, i.e. the light is radiated in a predefined direction,
• reduced spectral bandwidth, i.e. the light has just a single wavelength
• high lumination, i.e. high output power can be achieved
• and short light pulses can be generated.

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The term LASER is an acronym, the name was selected as a result of the method used to generate the beam.

Light
Amplification
by Stimmulated
Emission
of Radiation

Beam deflection process: the laser beam is deflected in the X and Y directions by two galvanometer mirrors, controlled by the PC and focussed on the component via a lens.

Advantage:

• very flexible due to PC control - large marking area

• in principle, it can be used with all material

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