2. Beam production and shaping

By definition, a beam is made up of radiation or particles with similar characteristics and following the same path.

The energy beams used in surface treatment are essentially electromagnetic radiation, electrons, hot gases or solid or molten particles.

To simplify the presentation, we'll consider their corpuscular nature here, in order to treat matter and energy beams in a unified way, from the photon to the shot particles.

To create a beam of matter or energy, we first create the particles, whether elementary or compound, and then impart a velocity to them in a given direction. Then, or simultaneously depending on its nature, the beam produced must be shaped. While low-energy particles (low temperature) are easy to store (powders, shot), high-energy particles (elementary particles, photons) are difficult or impossible...