3. Lasers and applications

3.1 Lasers for industry

The ability of lasers to deposit high power on a small surface area by focusing the beam has naturally led to their use in industry for many functions, such as drilling, cutting, welding, ablating or marking many materials. Naturally, the technological solution chosen depends on the type of material. For example, most metals strongly reflect light at long wavelengths, and absorb it at short wavelengths. What's more, the thickness of the material determines the spatial shaping of the beam (focusing, divergence, etc.).

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