As the technology of laser etching has advanced, new markets have evolved to take advantage of increasingly faster marking speeds as well as better marking precision and imaging capabilities. Continuing developments in laser-cavity design, beam-steering and focusing optics, and computer hardware and software are expanding the role of the systems.
Both designs provide the user with a selection of lenses that establish both the diameter of the engraving field and the etching-line width. Longer-focal-length lenses provide larger working areas, but the line width is also enlarged, thus reducing the power density on the work surface. The user must compensate by either increasing the laser output power and/or decreasing the etching speed which mostly consists of two lenses and may be placed anywhere in the beam path before the focusing lens.
A beam expander routinely is used instead of extending the beam path approximately 10 more feet, in which the beam expands through its inherent tendency to diverge as it exits the resonator cavity. A spatial filter inserted within the beam expander produces the best mode quality in close-coupled systems, by passing the beam through a minuscule aperture.
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