Abstract
Compared to conventional production technologies, the industrial laser is relatively new. Although the first lasers were developed in the opening years of the 1960’s, it was not until towards the end of that decade that viable industrial systems and processes were first developed. The commercial development of the industrial laser therefore covers at most a quarter of a century, in comparison to almost a century for electric arcs and many centuries for gas flames and furnaces. Nevertheless, the industrial laser has been accepted as the chosen technology for a large number of applications across a wide range of industries world-wide. The detailed reasons for the rapid uptake of such a comparatively new technology are explored in other chapters in this Handbook of the Eurolaser Academy.
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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Crafer, R.C. (1998). Beam Manipulation. In: Schuöcker, D. (eds) Handbook of the Eurolaser Academy. Engineering Lasers and Their Applications, vol 2. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5383-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5383-7_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-5385-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-5383-7
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