1、 The industry fluctuates with the manufacturing cycle in the short term, and the long-term continuous penetration promotes the scale growth
（1） Laser industry chain and related listed companies
Laser industry chain: The upstream of the laser industry chain is the laser chips and optoelectronic devices made of semiconductor materials, high-end equipment and related production accessories, which is the cornerstone of the laser industry.
In the middle of the industrial chain, upstream laser chips and optoelectronic devices, modules, optical components, etc. are used to manufacture and sell all kinds of lasers; The downstream is a laser equipment integrator, whose products are ultimately used in advanced manufacturing, medical health, scientific research, automotive applications, information technology, optical communication, optical storage and many other fields.
Development history of laser industry:
In 1917, Einstein put forward the concept of stimulated radiation, and the laser technology gradually became mature in theory in the next 40 years;
In 1960, the first ruby laser was born. After that, all kinds of lasers emerged one after another, and the industry entered the stage of application expansion;
After the 20th century, the laser industry entered a stage of rapid development. According to the Report on the Development of China’s Laser Industry, the market size of China’s laser equipment increased from 9.7 billion yuan to 69.2 billion yuan from 2010 to 2020, with CAGR of about 21.7%.
（2） In the short term, it fluctuates with the manufacturing cycle. In the long term, the penetration rate increases and new applications expand
1. The laser industry is widely distributed downstream and fluctuates with the manufacturing industry in the short term
The short-term prosperity of the laser industry is highly related to the manufacturing industry.
The demand for laser equipment comes from the capital expenditure of downstream enterprises, which is affected by the ability and willingness of enterprises to spend capital. The specific influencing factors include enterprise profits, capacity utilization, external financing environment of enterprises, and expectations for the future prospects of the industry.
At the same time, laser equipment is a typical general-purpose equipment, which is widely distributed in automobile, steel, petroleum, shipbuilding and other industries in the downstream. The overall prosperity of the laser industry is highly related to the manufacturing industry.
From the perspective of historical fluctuations in the industry, the laser industry experienced two rounds of significant growth from 2009 to 2010, Q2, 2017, Q1 to 2018, mainly related to the manufacturing industry cycle and the end product innovation cycle.
At present, the manufacturing industry cycle is in a boom stage, the sales of industrial robots, metal cutting machine tools, etc. remain at a high level, and the laser industry is in a period of strong demand.
2. Permeability increase and new application expansion in the long run
Laser processing has obvious advantages in processing efficiency and quality, and the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry promote the development of the industry. Laser processing is to focus the laser on the object to be processed, so that the object can be heated, melted or vaporized, so as to achieve the processing purpose.
Compared with traditional processing methods, laser processing has three main advantages:
(1) The laser processing path can be controlled by software;
(2) The precision of laser processing is extremely high;
(3) Laser processing belongs to non-contact processing, which can reduce the loss of cutting materials and has better processing quality.
Laser processing shows obvious advantages in processing efficiency, processing effect, etc., and conforms to the general direction of intelligent manufacturing. The transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry promote the substitution of optical processing for traditional processing.
（3） Laser technology and industry development trend
Laser luminescence principle:
Laser refers to a collimated, monochromatic and coherent directional beam generated by a narrow frequency optical radiation line through collecting feedback resonance and radiation amplification.
The laser is the core device to generate laser, which is mainly composed of three parts: excitation source, working medium and resonant cavity. When working, the excitation source acts on the working medium, making most particles in the excited state of high energy level, forming the inversion of particle number. After the photon incident, the high energy level particles transition to the low energy level, and emit a large number of photons identical to the incident photons.
Photons with different propagation direction from the transverse axis of the cavity will escape from the cavity, while photons with the same direction will travel back and forth in the cavity, making the stimulated radiation process continue and forming laser beams.
Working medium:
Also called gain medium, it refers to the substance used to realize the particle number inversion and generate the stimulated radiation amplification effect of light. The working medium determines the laser wavelength that the laser can radiate. According to the different shapes, it can be divided into solid (crystal, glass), gas (atomic gas, ionized gas, molecular gas), semiconductor, liquid and other media.
Pump source:
Stimulate the working medium and pump the activated particles from the ground state to the high energy level to realize the inversion of particle number. From the perspective of energy, the pumping process is a process in which the outside world provides energy (such as light, electricity, chemistry, heat energy, etc.) to the particle system.
It can be divided into optical excitation, gas discharge excitation, chemical mechanism, nuclear energy excitation, etc.
Resonant cavity:
The simplest optical resonator is to properly place two high reflectivity mirrors at both ends of the active medium, one of which is a total mirror, reflecting all the light back to the medium for further amplification; The other is a partially reflective and partially transmissive reflector as the output mirror. According to whether the side boundary can be ignored, the resonator is divided into open cavity, closed cavity and gas waveguide cavity.
Post time: Nov-08-2022