Laser marking of tools, workpieces and components offers advantages in many applications. The process is flexible, it offers several methods of permanently marking surfaces; it is a safe and environmentally friendly; it can be applied to flat, curved and unusually shaped objects made from any of a variety of materials and it can be used with materials that may be damaged by other marking methods.
Laser marking is a noncontact, thermal process relying on the heat generated by the laser beam to alter the surface of the workpiece. As its acronym name implies (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), lasers amplify light by absorbing and emitting energy in the form of a high-intensity beam of laser light.
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For many drivers, it is their last best hope. The crash-warning systems that are increasingly common in higher-end cars sound an alarm if a collision is imminent, providing a few precious seconds for the operator to slam on the brakes or quickly change course to avoid an accident.
The reliability of these systems is crucial, so the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., wants to find out whether there is room for improvement.
The government agency devised a laser-based independent measurement system and is helping the US Department of Transportation to assess the performance of the collision-warning systems. Researchers in the automotive industry will be able to use the data to make improvements to warning systems currently under development.
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… because laser sensors will slam on the brakes (of course, it’s a Volvo).
That sickening - not to mention painful - feeling as your car crunches into a vehicle in front looks like becoming just an expensive memory for drivers.
Volvo has come up with a crash-proof family car which will go on sale in the autumn.
Its secret is a laser-guidance system to spot vehicles in front that are too close or stopping suddenly. When it does, the Volvo will stop of its own accord to avoid a smash.
The CitySafety system, which kicks in at speeds of up to 20mph and is designed for urban driving, has the potential to prevent half of all rear-end collisions, said Volvo.
A laser sensor built into the windscreen reacts to traffic in front that is either stationary or moving in the same direction.
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Photonic Products, the UK optoelectronics device manufacturer and laser diode specialist, is pleased to announce that Sanyo’s tiny blue-violet laser diodes are now available in industrial strength and power: three new 405nm laser diodes which offer 20mW, 45mW or a massive 85mW optical output power, the highest power available in a single mode laser diode with an internal monitor photodiode.
This internal monitor photodiode, which can be used to accurately stabilise and control the optical output power, plus their stable beam structure, lower noise and lower current consumption, enables these new Sanyo blue-violet laser diodes to offer the performance required for critically demanding industrial and medical applications such as biomedical instrumentation, medical imaging, fluorescence, high-resolution printing, advanced DVD and industrial alignment.
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In a bid to develop cleaner diesel engines, researchers are using lasers to pinpoint the exact location where soot is formed.
A technique known as laser induced incandescence is helping researchers in the Netherlands locate exactly where soot is generated. The aim is to understand optimal engine conditions and in turn reduce soot emission.
“Our technique enables the in situ investigation of soot particles during the combustion process at very short time scales,” Hans ter Meulen, a researcher at Radboud University, told optics.org.
“As far as we know, there are no other techniques to measure soot particles during the combustion process and without disturbing the process itself.”
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Line Generators or Cross Lasers project a horizontal and vertical line onto a single surface. This “crosshair” pattern projects plumb and level reference lines. Line generators help with various tasks like leveling, tiling, plumbing, machine control, excavation, landscaping, swimming pool construction, concrete leveling, home building and more.
Line generators can be separated into 2 main groups, indoor and indoor/outdoor.
Although rotary lasers and line generators both project a horizontal plane, they differ in size, distance and projection.
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Applications requiring low-power lasers are expected to drive growth in the laser projection market, according to the latest report from Insight Media.
The first application to use laser projectors is expected to be rear-projection television (RPTV), driven primarily by the price and availability of lasers. That’s according to market analyst Insight Media, who also predicts that the largest single market will be pico-projectors – with sales projected to reach millions by 2012.
The report, entitled “2007 Laser Projection Systems: A study of the use of lasers as an illumination source for projection systems’, predicts that applications requiring the lowest power lasers will drive growth in the laser projection market.
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It’s a clean source of energy using fuel that can easily be extracted from sea water, and it isn’t owned by Saudi Arabia. We’re talking about fusion - and a multinational project led by British researchers that aims to use high-powered lasers to produce nuclear fusion, the same physical reaction powering the sun.
If they succeed, they could solve the approaching world energy crisis without destroying the environment.
Although the team admits a commercial fusion reactor is still decades away, it believes using lasers to spark fusion shows great promise.
The EU has agreed to fund the setup costs for a seven-year research project called HiPER (High Powered Laser Energy Research) to build a working demonstration reactor. But preparing for that stage - requiring the collaboration of 11 nations including Germany, France, Canada and Russia - is expected to cost more than €50m (£35m).
Building the reactor itself will cost more than €500m.
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ScienceDaily — Let’s say a fuel derived from biomass produces too much soot when it’s burned in a combustion chamber designed for fossil fuels.
How can an engineer find the source of the problem? It originates, after all, in the flame zone of a highly turbulent combustion chamber. That’s not exactly an easy place for an engineer to take measurements.
“It’s fairly obvious when a combustor is not running well and producing a lot of soot and other pollutants,” said Terry Meyer, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State University. “But then how do you solve that problem? To do that we can open up the black box and look inside the combustion chamber itself.”
The tools that Meyer is developing to do that are highly sophisticated laser-based sensors that can capture images at thousands and even millions of frames per second. Those images record all kinds of data about what’s happening in the flaming mix of fuel and air.
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A customized laser scanning system produces an accurate 3D analysis of wrinkles in laminated plastics.
Wrinkles can be a serious problem for manufacturers of laminated plastics and textiles. Different schemes for measuring and characterizing surface wrinkles in these materials have been developed, but don’t provide true 3D data on the wrinkle’s size and shape.
Now, however, a team at the University of Texas, Austin, has developed a laser-based system that enables 3D analysis of wrinkles in laminated plastics.
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