EPIC talks beam shaping collab with Cailabs and Precitec

Antonio Castelo: Can you give us a brief overview of your companies?

Gwenn Pallier: Founded in 2013 and based in Rennes, France, with a workforce of around 150, Cailabs specializes in light manipulation for applications in telecommunications, defense, space, and industrial laser processing. At the heart of our technology is our proprietary multiplane light conversion (MPLC) technology, which allows beam shaping—precise manipulation of a laser beam’s phase and amplitude through a sequence of phase planes—typically using reflective “mirror” surfaces to minimize losses and handle high power or energy beams.

Our main business right now is space communications. We develop industrial optical ground stations with a unique MPLC-based solution to mitigate atmospheric turbulences. I'm the product line manager for laser processing applications, which includes microprocessing, additive manufacturing (wire directed energy deposition), and welding.

Markus Kogel-Hollacher: Precitec is a family-owned German company, founded in 1971 and headquartered in Gaggenau. We have ~700 employees worldwide, with subsidiaries in the U.S., Japan, France, China, and India. During the last 50 years, we’ve become the global market leader in laser technology and optical metrology, providing processing heads, especially for laser cutting, laser welding, and additive manufacturing. Our unique selling point is solutions for industrial material processing with integrated sensor technology for quality assurance and even closed-loop control.

For about 30 years, my role at Precitec has been to oversee government-funded projects and bring new technology into the Precitec world.

Castelo: Advantages of beam shaping?

Pallier: The output of a laser is generally a Gaussian beam. For the field of fiber networks, the ability to change the beam’s shape means we can encode information in different modes (different shapes) and then propagate them together inside a fiber to increase the data rate—we hold a world record for this. Within the realm of laser processing, changing the beam shape enables optimizing the process in terms of stability, speed, or quality.

Castelo: What’s the backstory behind your beam shaping collaboration?

Kogel-Hollacher: Our collaboration started in 2018 when we were both invited to join the European Union’s (EU) CUSTODIAN project, which was set up to explore how beam shaping could improve laser processes. We investigated the effects of symmetric and nonsymmetric shapes on laser cutting of thick sheets as well as on weld quality, especially for tricky metals like aluminum and copper, to prevent defects such as cracks or pores, increase efficiency, and open new applications for lasers within industries like aerospace and e-mobility.

At Precitec, we had experience with beam shaping through the development of our CoaxPrinter, which was launched in December 2017. The standout feature of this printer was that it used a transmissive form of beam shaping—it projected the laser in a ring-shaped profile around the wire feed to ensure uniform heating from all directions, optimal interaction with the wire and substrate, and avoid “shadowing” effects that can occur when the wire blocks the laser beam. Following successful commercialization of this printer, we began thinking about how beam shaping with its ability to change intensity distribution can be used to enhance other applications like laser welding and laser cutting—particularly for the e-mobility industry. Within this context, we were attracted to Cailabs because of their MPLC technology and commitment to continuous innovation.

Pallier: At that time, only a few companies in laser processing were interested in beam shaping and, as a new player, the partnership with Precitec was a chance to catch up on real needs and figure out the best uses of our technology.

Castelo: How has your collaboration developed?

Pallier: The initial agreement was for Precitec to integrate Cailabs’ compact MPLC beam shaping modules into their laser heads to provide a tailored spatial profile to improve welding/cutting performance. After successful tests of the cutting head in Rennes, Precitec conducted the first laser cutting tests in March 2021, cutting stainless steel sheets (5- to 30-mm deep). The same year, we also introduced a high-power (up to 16-kW) ring-beam shaping solution for welding challenging materials like copper.

Kogel-Hollacher: After the CUSTODIAN project ended in August 2022, we continued tests and were impressed with the results because the central spot with surrounding ring resulted in more homogeneous seams and fewer spatter in laser welding of copper and aluminum. Accordingly, in 2024, we officially integrated Cailabs’ MPLC modules into our laser welding heads to solve e-mobility welding challenges like copper and aluminum.

Castelo: Is European collaboration still needed for the field of laser technology?

Pallier: Absolutely—it’s best way to innovate. For long-term R&D, European projects are crucial because you work with a lot of experts and you get feedback on how to improve your products. For Cailabs, this is really the way to go from one generation of product to the next.

Kogel-Hollacher: For Precitec, European collaboration is essential for the same reason: We need research institutes to subject our functional models and prototypes to rigorous testing and provide us with their feedback. We also need feedback from end users on our solutions. This all happens between 36 or 42 months in a European project. It’s a brilliant way to improve ideas and develop new products—at least to a certain technology readiness level.

Castelo: How do you envision the future of beam shaping?

Pallier: Laser power is following Moore’s law in that the maximum available laser power nearly doubles every few years. Within 10 years gigawatt continuous-wave lasers will be available, as well as a 100-kW femtosecond laser. But at this power, there is little you can do directly with the laser beam—it’s way too much and will kill the material if you want to do laser processing. There will be no other choice than to use beam shaping, and the next steps for improving laser processing for many applications will focus on finding the appropriate shapes to manage the increased power.

Kogel-Hollacher: I agree. Fortunately, the fully reflective concept of Cailabs’ MPLC is the only one that can withstand these high powers without the major problems of thermal influences on the beam quality, which is why Cailabs’ module is so advantageous for Precitec. Beam shaping and the resulting application-specific intensity distribution reduces spatters to a minimum and can improve both speed and quality to enable much more robust processing than with a raw Gaussian beam, which will become a thing of the past, at least for continuous-wave material processing.

During the past five years, we’ve also worked on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for process monitoring so that all the process monitoring data we acquire during cutting, welding, and additive processes are evaluated by specific AI algorithms to get more reliable information about the processes and their results. For these reasons, I believe that for the continuous-wave world, AI used in conjunction with beam shaping will become a standard solution in the future.

Castelo: Will your collaboration continue?

Kogel-Hollacher: Most certainly. Cailabs is a trusted partner and we’re particularly impressed by how quickly they’ve become a major player in laser material processing, how they still look forward to what’s coming next, and continue trying to innovate.

Pallier: It’s the same for us. In fact, we’ve already started a second collaboration with Precitec in the EU’s REPAM project, which, since October 2024, has aimed to boost sustainability across the additive manufacturing value chain. The goal of the project is to apply beam shaping technologies to enhance laser-based processing of recycled feedstock.