What is the Process of Laser Cutting?

 Description

Laser cutting, as the name may suggest, is the process of cutting a material using a laser beam. This can be done to either trim down a material or to help cut it into complex shapes that more conventional drills would struggle with. Laser cutting is a highly accurate process, thanks to this high level of control that you are offered. Thanks to this, slits with a width as small as 0.1mm can be achieved when using the laser cutting process.

Laser cutting works by having a focused and precise laser beam run through the material that you are looking to cut, delivering an accurate and smooth finish. Initially, the laser is used to pierce the material with a hole at the edge, and then the beam is continued along from there.

The laser being used essentially melts the material away that it is run over, so is more like melting than cutting. This means that it can easily cut light materials such as cloth up to tougher metals and gemstones such as diamonds.

You can use either a pulsed laser beam or a continuous wave laser beam, with the former being delivered in short bursts while the latter works continuously. You can control the beam intensity, length and heat output depending on the material you are working with, and can also user a mirror or special lens to further focus the laser beam.