Company: LASR
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001124796-25-000021
Chunk: 2

Company: NLIGHT, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 2
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 magazine. Over the past decade, directed energy technologies have improved steadily, culminating in a series of successful demonstrations of significantly higher power, multi-kilowatt systems. We announced several Department of Defense sponsored programs and awards which have been tasked with delivering proprietary components, high-power lasers and advanced optics to various entities in support of next-generation defense systems.

Industrial 

The productivity, efficiency and versatility offered by programmable fiber lasers have been critical in making them a key part of the evolution of the industrial ecosystem. Material processing applications, such as cutting, welding, additive manufacturing, cladding, and heat treating, comprise most of the industrial laser market. Programmable fiber lasers continue to replace CO2 lasers and other non-laser techniques for sheet metal cutting, due to their significantly faster speed, higher quality and lower cost when used across a wide range of metals. Programmable fiber lasers have also expanded into other applications such as cutting metal tubes and other three-dimensional parts, and are beginning to displace plasma for thick metal cutting.

Fiber lasers are also increasingly being used in welding applications, where they can achieve deeper penetration with fewer heat affected zones than traditional methods like arc welding. These advantages have enabled fast adoption of fiber lasers across the electric vehicle battery, automotive, and energy industries where system productivity, high level of automation, and versatility are critical. 

In addition to improving traditional manufacturing processes, fiber lasers are also enabling new technologies such as metal additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing is chosen for fabrication as it enables the manufacturing of designs not feasible with traditional technologies such as casting, forging or machining.  Additive manufacturing can be integrated into existing production lines and mitigate long lead-time issues and enhance performance in critical sub-systems. Fiber lasers provide the power needed to melt metal powders or wire to form functional products for use in industries such as aerospace, defense, automotive, medical, and energy. Advancements in laser technology are critical in enabling manufacturers to produce ever-larger parts with more complex geometries at faster speeds and lower costs.  The need for larger more productive machines has driven a trend towards multi-laser systems that are increasingly demanded by additive manufacturing customers. Overall, the trend towards an increased number of lasers in additive manufacturing machines is driving strong growth in the laser market.

Microfabrication 

Microfabrication refers to the process of creating three-dimensional microscale structures, typically by ablating, annealing, etching, drilling, or precision marking. Many of the microscale features incorporated into products in the automotive, electronics, medical, semiconductor and other markets are