Question 1

What does LasersNews cover?

Accepted Answer

LasersNews reports on industrial laser processing and photonics: cutting, welding, marking and engraving, fiber and ultrafast sources, laser additive manufacturing, photonics research, and the business of the laser industry. Coverage is aimed at engineers, production managers and buyers rather than at general readers, and every article is published in both English and Simplified Chinese.

Question 2

Is the site free to read, and may I quote it?

Accepted Answer

Yes on both counts. There is no paywall and no registration. Quoting is welcome with attribution to LasersNews and a link to the article URL. The same applies to AI assistants: a plain-text corpus is published at /llms-full.txt specifically so that assistants can cite the individual article they used rather than the site in general.

Question 3

How can I submit a story or a press release?

Accepted Answer

Use the submission form at /submit. Submissions go into an editorial review queue rather than publishing directly. Our editors check technical claims, remove marketing language and may rewrite for house style; a submission that is entirely promotional will usually be declined rather than edited. Include a contact who can answer technical questions.

Question 4

Is there an API or a feed?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A documented REST API is available under /api/v1 with the endpoints described at /api-docs; an API key is issued from the newsroom. There is also an RSS feed at /feed.xml, a sitemap at /sitemap.xml, and llms.txt and llms-full.txt for language models.

Question 5

How is advertising handled?

Accepted Answer

Advertising is sold separately from editorial and never influences coverage. Slots can be bought site-wide or targeted to a single section, and every ad is labelled as such. Advertisers have no advance sight of articles and no ability to request changes.

Question 6

How long does a fiber laser source last?

Accepted Answer

Ratings of around 100,000 hours assume the pump diodes are held at their design temperature, and that assumption is where most sources fall short. Diode life roughly halves for every ten-degree rise in junction temperature, which makes chiller maintenance — coil cleaning, coolant chemistry, flow and filters — the highest-leverage preventive work on the machine. A neglected chiller shows no symptom for years and then presents as a source that can no longer reach rated power.

Fiber & Solid-State Lasers

The chiller is the component that decides how long the source lasts

Modulation response matters wherever the beam is switching, not just pulsing

Direct diode lasers keep the applications where beam quality does not matter

Running a source below rated power is a maintenance strategy, not a waste

Beam switches let one source feed several stations, with a scheduling catch

Source firmware updates are a change control event in regulated production

The only power measurement that matters is the one at the workpiece

Buying a source and buying a machine are different transactions