Current status and future prospect of high-power industrial lasers for material processing

Summary form only given, as follows. Laser materials processing with high power lasers is becoming widely accepted in industrial use. Several trends of high power lasers may be identified. Efforts are undertaken for all kinds of lasers to cut down the production cost, to improve reliability and to increase output power. Developments in CO/sub 2/, Nd:YAG and COIL lasers are discussed.