12 November 2003 16:29
The Siberian Hyperboloid
20 years ago, Russia had clear priorities in laser technology. Surprisingly, these priorities still exist but no one knows what to do with them
Viktor Russkikh
The idea of a light beam that cuts haunted the imaginations of our ancestors. In a science fiction novel by Alexei Tolstoi, the hyperboloid invented by engineer Garin cut literally everything – the author imagined no limits to its power. After US and Soviet scientists built laser generators in the 1950s and 1960s, this idea changed from science fiction to science fact. Of course, the hyperboloid has yet to be invented so far, and enhancing lasers’ power remains one of the main problems for scientists. The one with the highest power laser will conquer the world.
Twenty years of scientific surplus
 The US and Germany are the biggest producers of gas lasers. Their quality is determined, in particular, by the size of the point a laser beam can be focused onto. Lasers of all the major world producers, such as TRUMF, ROFIN-SINAR and others, are able to generate high-quality emission of only 3-4 KW. As power increases, quality swiftly deteriorates, and the point of contact between laser beam and the material expands. With high-powered lasers of 6 KW or more capable of cutting stainless steel as thick as 45 mm, cutting quality leaves much to be desired and energy costs are considerable. The edge comes out wide and rugged.
Until the nineties, industrial laser technology developed efficiently in the Soviet Union. The original laser unit was created at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) at the Novosibirsk Academic Campus (Akademgorodok), one of the main centers for scientific research in the USSR. “Back then,” ITAM’s Deputy Director Anatoly Orishich says, “we were absolute world leaders. A lot has been done in the last twenty years, but I have attended the largest laser forums regularly, including the Munich Laser Machinery Fair, and I can safely say that so far no one has come close to the solutions we found in the mid 80s.”
The resonator is one of the principal parts of any laser. At ITAM, they succeeded in making a resonator with good-quality emission at very high power. For the first time in history, scientists have built an 8 KW “Siberian hyperboloid.” It can cut through a 30-mm titanium sheet beautifully, while regular Western specimens cut sheets of no more than 7 mm thick. A 16 KW industrial laser unit will be put into operation by December.
Siberian lasers can do more than cut thick materials well. The Institute’s scientists have also developed high-speed laser cutting. According to Orishich, his colleagues abroad simply don’t believe him when they hear that in Novosibirsk, lasers cut electric grade steel at up to 20 m per minute. They don’t believe him because no other existing laser in the entire world is able to cut faster than 1 meter per minute. In the Gorbachev era, when many were discussing how to speed up and modernize industry, laser technologies and other innovations came to the government’s attention. The Ministry of Science carefully selected from among available projects in favor of the ITAM laser. A Novosibirsk plant, Sibelectroterm, even produced about two dozen laser units but didn’t have time to set up mass production. The Institute itself became the sole producer of domestic, powerful CO2 lasers for the two decades that followed. The laboratory, headed by Orishich, put out hundreds of such units, and many are still operating perfectly at companies across Russia and the CIS. Of course, it’s not mass production, but not bad for an Academy Institute.
Strange as it may seem, Siberia Airlines was the first investor interested in the scientists from Academgorodok. All started with experiments with laser aluminum welding, conducted at ITAM and close to the airline’s heart. However, the commercial prospects for laser cutting appeared to be no less promising to the airline’s General Director Vladislav Filev. The Institute and the company set up a joint venture – OKB Lazernaya Tekhnika (Laser Machinery Design Bureau), and Siberia has already invested several million dollars in the business.
Better to buy in the West than to build in Russia
Over the last 10 years, the world has watched the laser machinery market grow steadily. There is a worldwide push to process materials not with blades (cutters, mills, and other cutting tools), but with laser beams. The process began with a plane, processing flat sheets, but it is not impossible that 3D processing and laser lathes are right around the corner. Industrial laser technology produces from $10 to $15 worth of economic benefits for $1 of costs on average. Labor productivity increases by 5-10 times and some processes can be fully automated.
In the late nineties, the laser market expanded by 20% a year on average. In 2000, a 70-percent surge occurred and laser machinery sales exceeded $70 billion a year. The market for telecom laser radiation sources as well as for material processing lasers –lasers that cut, drill, modify a surface, or mark–grew especially rapidly. Experts estimate the laser market is a long way from saturation and is still in the rapid growth phase.
If a laser two-four times more powerful than those available and ensuring the increase in labor productivity at least by 30% were to enter the market, the global market would surrender quickly. But it is almost impossible for a Russian laser to enter the market today. According to Vladislav Filev, building a plant and mass producing Russian lasers would require about $100 million. Ideally, one plant is not enough and the whole industry needs to develop, since the end product and all its parts have to meet world quality standards. Concurrently, post-sale service will have to be developed in foreign countries. Service and maintenance, as a rule, cost at least as much as production.
Another way to enter foreign markets is to purchase a large stake in a foreign laser machinery producer like ROFIN-SINAR, for example. This only looks good at first glance. Any large foreign company with a basic patent could easily win in the competition.
There is yet another, third way: state support. However, today as the state continues to withdraw from industry and has no consistent innovation policy whatsoever, this looks even more unrealistic than the first two.
The state and scientific revolution
Many Western laser companies and firms, irrespective of their size, are publicly financed, either directly or indirectly, as enterprises dealing with innovation technologies.
In Russia, in the present context, there is no sense in demanding that the government develop industry and return to public financing of companies. Yet it is possible to support the laser industry via government strategic programs, such as creation of new generation fighters or tanks. Especially as military developments implemented under government orders tend to find application in purely civil products, such as civil aircraft construction, motor-car construction and other industries.
A clear industry and innovation policy from the government would be of even greater help to domestic innovation companies. Investors putting money in tech projects and enterprises purchasing equipment and technology from domestic companies should have economic incentives to this end. But so far, real support of domestic entrepreneurship from the government doesn’t advance beyond a vague populism and a few gestures. Russian money goes abroad, not so much because there is nothing to invest in in Russia, but because of the constantly changing rules of the market game.
Of course, investments even in the most promising scientific developments imply taking time and risk. The state exists to give support to the most promising projects and to stimulate science-intensive export, or in other words to do everything countries include in their concepts of national economic security.
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