Shenzhen Gongda Laser Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Gongda Laser") is a high-tech intelligent manufacturing enterprise. It is also a national high-tech enterprise and a specialized new enterprise. The company has been focusing on the R&D and manufacturing of high-power short-wavelength fiber lasers. and is committed to becoming an international first-line and domestic leading fiber laser supplier.
At present, OUHK Laser has completed the research, development, and production of a series of core products, such as the "50-500W sub-nanosecond green laser," the "100-300W continuous green laser," and the "200-1000W infrared nanosecond pulse fiber laser," and the products are widely used. In the fields of lithium batteries, photovoltaic cells, highly reflective metal 3D printing, semiconductors and other fields. As a domestic leader in high-power green lasers, OUDA Laser has won wide recognition from the industry and investors with its excellent technical strength and market performance. The company has been committed to creating high-quality green laser products and promoting the development of laser technology in China. Recently, "Laser Manufacturing Business News" had the honor to discuss and communicate with Mr. Huang Guoxi, deputy general manager of OUDA Laser, about the company's products and future development, allowing us to have a deeper understanding of OUDA Laser.
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Hello, Mr. Huang! Thank you very much for accepting the interview with our "Laser Manufacturing Business News". First of all, please briefly introduce the company's development history and current status.
Mr. Huang: Shenzhen OUDA Laser was established in December 2019. It currently has more than 150 employees, of which more than 30% are R&D personnel. It mainly focuses on the development and application of high-power, short-wavelength fiber lasers. The short-wavelength fiber laser products promoted by OUHK Laser are currently mainly distributed in the green light band, covering several types of continuous, quasi-continuous, nanosecond, and picosecond pulses in the time domain. With market applications in photovoltaics, lithium batteries, 3C industries and 3D printing, the demand for high-power green light has gradually increased. In 2023, OUHK's laser sales performance has made great progress, with revenue exceeding the 100 million yuan mark. In the domestic fiber-green laser segment, it occupies more than 80% of the market. After several years of product iteration and application accumulation, it is expected to reach a new level in 2024.
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We learned that OUHK Laser’s products include high-power, short-wavelength (green and ultraviolet) fiber lasers. What are the characteristics of ultraviolet and green lasers in precision processing, and what are their application areas?
Mr. Huang: Compared with infrared lasers, green ultraviolet light has a shorter wavelength and higher single-photon energy. It can cold process materials with larger molecular bond energy to obtain better processing quality and is used in the field of precision processing. widely.
High-power fiber green lasers mainly exhibit several characteristics, such as high precision, fast efficiency, good stability, and high cost performance in precision processing applications. Because of its shorter wavelength, some materials have higher absorption coefficients for green light. It has incomparable advantages over infrared in welding and cutting of commonly used high-reflective metal materials such as copper, gold, and aluminum. Especially in the processing of highly reflective metals, high-power green lasers have the obvious characteristics of less thermal impact, high precision, and better stability than currently commonly used infrared lasers. For example, in the welding application of multi-layer tabs on the negative current collector plate of 4680 large batteries, high-power green light has obvious yield advantages.
Compared with ordinary solid-state nanosecond ultraviolet lasers, ultraviolet fiber lasers have higher average power, shorter pulses, better long-term stability, and can achieve better efficiency and effects in processing. OUHK Laser currently launches fiber optic UV products with an average power of 5–50W, and the maximum power of the laboratory prototype reaches 100W. They are mainly used in the field of high-efficiency precision processing. The wavelength of ultraviolet laser is shorter, and it has been applied in batches in several specific directions, such as precision processing of organic thin film materials, efficient cutting of PI films, and ink removal from mobile phone cameras.
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What are the company’s recent key R&D products? What industries are they used in? What are its unique advantages?
Mr. Huang: The company's current main research and development directions are: 1. Continue to deepen the field of high-power green fiber lasers and expand towards higher power and narrower pulse width. 2. Expand towards shorter wavelengths and continue to develop into ultraviolet and deep ultraviolet. For example, the single-mode 300W UV laser project is our key project in 2024. We strive to complete the prototype by the end of the year and enter the application testing stage. The 300W single-mode UV laser is expected to achieve breakthrough application progress in the semiconductor lithography industry.
In addition, the company's industrial-grade femtosecond laser project initiated at the beginning of the year is also advancing rapidly, striving to complete the prototype early next year and gradually introduce it to the market. Femtosecond lasers with large pulse energy, hundreds of femtoseconds, and high stability are expected to play a key role in the TGV process of advanced semiconductor packaging glass substrates in the future.
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At present, what is the market size of the company's ultraviolet lasers and green lasers? What is the market's development potential?
Mr. Huang: At present, the company's fiber UV laser sales account for less than 10%, mainly fiber green lasers, which account for more than 80% of the company's revenue. Green fiber lasers: with the rapid growth of the photovoltaic and 3C industries in the past 10 years, the green laser market continues to grow. Especially in recent years, driven by the demand for cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the lithium battery and photovoltaic industries, the market has rapidly expanded and entered a period of rapid development.
At present, most of the sales and applications of UV lasers are still based on solid-state UV lasers due to cost factors. Fiber UV lasers account for a relatively small proportion, no more than 20%. Fiber optic UV has promising future development space due to its better stability and higher cost performance.
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Does your company have any technical difficulties in the process of developing lasers?
Mr. Huang: Dr. Zhang Fan, the founder of the company, has been deeply involved in the field of fiber lasers for more than 16 years. He conducted a lot of technical exploration and accumulation in the early stage. After the company was established in 2019, he started the process of commercializing high-power fiber lasers. For more than four years, we have been continuously developing and manufacturing different types of high-power green fiber lasers while also constantly exploring and promoting the industrial applications of these types of lasers. Before OUHK Laser, there had never been a domestic company focusing on high-power green fiber lasers, nor had there been any large-scale industrial applications. At this level, we can be regarded as pioneers in this segment. During these four years of arduous exploration, we have indeed encountered many difficulties. High-power polarization-maintaining narrow-linewidth fundamental-frequency laser have various nonlinear effects and limit the average power, which has serious safety implications; ultra-high-power ultraviolet laser damage laser crystals and optical components. Extremely high requirements have brought huge challenges to our industrialization. Regarding the related difficulties encountered, after years of attempts and accumulation, we developed some core modules and components based on the underlying principles, solved the related problems from different directions, and obtained relatively satisfactory results.
As we continue to pursue several key indicators such as higher average power, higher single pulse energy, and higher peak power while maintaining excellent beam quality, difficulties still exist. We are still on the road and will continue to move toward the future.
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Could you please summarize the achievements of your company in 2023 and talk about any new planning ideas for 2024?
Mr. Huang: Achievements achieved in 2023:
1) The company's sales performance has achieved a huge breakthrough compared with the previous year, crossing the 100 million yuan mark;
2) In the domestic high-power optical fiber green light application market, OUDA Laser has come from behind, surpassing the imported manufacturer IPG and taking the lead;
3) Gongda’s pulsed optical fiber green light has been used in large quantities in the photovoltaic field with remarkable results; it has also made important application progress in the lithium battery, semiconductor, 3D printing and 3C industries.
4) OUHK’s kilowatt-level high-power optical fiber green light is gradually used in the lithium battery industry and 3C industry and has achieved remarkable results in the welding of copper materials.
The company’s main focus in 2024 will be:
1) Continue to promote 1000–3000W continuous green light for applications such as highly reflective material welding, metal 3D printing, laser annealing, etc.;
2) Promote the research, development and application of 4680 large battery-related supporting processes (welding & cutting) and laser light sources to help 4680 large batteries improve yield, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and quickly implement;
3) Cooperate with leading end customers to develop photovoltaic lithium-ion laser technology, develop matching lasers, and implement cutting-edge applications.
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In recent years, green lasers have made substantial progress in commercial applications. Among them, TRUMPF of Germany and IPG of the United States occupy the majority of the global market share. What do you think of the development of the green laser market?
Mr. Huang: Due to its high technical difficulty, high-power green laser are a scarce resource and there are few matching products in China. Indeed, the early green laser market was mainly divided between the leading import manufacturers, IPG of the United States and TRUMPF of Germany.
IPG, the global leader in fiber lasers, and TRUMPF Laser, the leader in disc lasers, started early in high-power green light, especially in the two directions of photovoltaics and lithium batteries, and have made outstanding contributions to the application of high-power green light lasers.
As the pioneer of high-power green light lasers in China, OUHK Laser has adopted different technical routes to commercialize high-power fiber-optic green light, providing strong support for China's high-end manufacturing. Due to the huge domestic market and complete localized supply chain, domestically produced high-power optical fiber green light has more advantages in terms of stability and cost-effectiveness. Photovoltaic, lithium battery, and other industries are key industries for national development, and their requirements for the proportion of domestically produced production equipment are getting higher and higher.
The photovoltaic and lithium battery industries are key global industries that solve future energy problems and have a huge market share. In the early stages, much production and processing equipment used infrared lasers as processing light sources. As application demands continue to increase, there will be huge market space for the application of high-power green light in the future.
To sum up, OUHK Laser is full of confidence in the future.