High-Power Lasers and Optical Waveguides for Robotic Material-Processing Applications

Optical waveguides are known to be useful for optical signal transmission in which low-power, modulated semiconductor injection laser * Bell Laboratories. ®Copyright 1983, American Telephone & Telegraph Company. Photo reproduction for noncommercial use is permitted without payment of royalty provided that each reproduction is done without alteration and that the Journal reference and copyright notice are included on the first page. The title and abstract, but no other portions, of this paper may be copied or distributed royalty free by computer-based and other information-service systems without further permission. Permission to reproduce or republish any other portion of this paper must be obtained from the Editor. 2479 light is used for lightwave communication applications.1 The advent of low-loss optical fiber waveguides, for example, has made possible long-distance, high-bandwidth lightwave communication systems for transmitting audio, data, and video signals. This paper discusses the use of optical waveguides for a different application: high-power laser transmission for robotic material-processing applications. Using highpower continuous wave (cw) and pulsed lasers and appropriate optical waveguides for the ultraviolet (UV), the visible, the near infrared (IR), and the longer IR, a robot can manipulate the output beam of a variety of high-power lasers for various processing functions. In Section II we discuss the available flexible waveguides for high-power laser transmission.