Before the industrial adoption of high-power fiber lasers, which type of laser was the standard for material processing?
Answer
$ ext{CO}_2$ lasers
The text notes that before fiber lasers gained traction for tasks like cutting metals, $ ext{CO}_2$ lasers were the established standard for high-power industrial material processing.
Related Questions
What was Elias Snitzer's most fundamental contribution to the fiber laser technology?What critical limitation facing early optical communication concepts did Snitzer's early work primarily address?In the early 1960s, what was Snitzer widely credited for achieving regarding light attenuation in glass fibers?What two core components are necessary for a fiber to function as an active laser medium?Which rare-earth elements are mentioned as examples used for doping fibers to create the active laser medium?What major limitation of older $ ext{Nd:YAG}$ rod lasers does the fiber laser inherently solve due to its geometry?Before the industrial adoption of high-power fiber lasers, which type of laser was the standard for material processing?In the evolutionary pathway toward the fiber laser, what step occurred immediately after Elias Snitzer developed the low-loss waveguide foundation in the Early 1960s?During the 1960s, what scale of impurity concentration was Snitzer primarily fighting against that caused light scattering or absorption?Where did Elias Snitzer conduct much of the foundational work central to advancing optical technology?