328 Laser Sources manufacturers & suppliers (2026)
A laser source is the device that generates the beam itself, as distinct from the machine built around it. Sources are grouped by what generates the light — a doped fibre, a crystal, a semiconductor, a gas — because that choice sets the wavelength, the pulse duration and the power available, and those three between them decide what the laser can actually do.
328 companies · reviewed 2026-08
- Wavelengths in use
- 193 nm – 25 µm
- Output modes
- CW, nanosecond, picosecond, femtosecond
- Power range
- milliwatts – tens of kilowatts
- Sets the price
- average power, pulse duration, beam quality
Which type do you need?
Ranges are the commercially common cases rather than physics records; vendors vary. Each row links to that type’s buyer’s guide and suppliers.
| Type | Wavelength | Output | Power | Used for | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiber60 | 1030–1080 nm | CW and nanosecond | 20 W – 100 kW | Cutting, welding, marking metal | You need power, uptime and low maintenance on a production floor. |
| CO₂19 | 10.6 µm | CW and pulsed | 10 W – 20 kW | Plastics, wood, textiles, glass, thick steel | The material is non-metallic — organics absorb 10.6 µm far better than 1 µm. |
| Diode147 | ~380 nm – 3.4 µm | Mostly CW | mW – multi-kW | Pumping other lasers, illumination, plastic welding, direct-diode cladding | Cost, efficiency and size matter more than beam quality. |
| Solid-state / DPSS61 | 1064 nm + harmonics (532 / 355 / 266 nm) | CW to nanosecond | mW – kW | Marking, engraving, scientific work | You need a shorter wavelength or higher pulse energy than a fibre laser gives. |
| Ultrafast (fs / ps)31 | 1030 nm, 800 nm, 515 nm | Femtosecond to picosecond | 1 W – 240 W | Glass and display cutting, stents, injector holes, microscopy | A melted or cracked edge is unacceptable, or the material is transparent. |
| Excimer6 | 193 / 248 / 308 / 351 nm | Nanosecond pulses | W – hundreds of W | Lithography, eye surgery, display annealing | You need deep-UV photons to break bonds directly rather than heat the material. |
| Quantum cascade (QCL)13 | ~3–25 µm (mid-IR) | CW and pulsed | mW (W-level in specific designs) | Gas sensing, spectroscopy, countermeasures | Your molecule absorbs in the mid-IR — no other compact source reaches these wavelengths. |
| Tunable / single-frequency30 | Selectable across a band | CW or pulsed | mW – W | Spectroscopy, metrology, quantum research | The wavelength itself is the variable you need to control. |
| Supercontinuum5 | ~400–2400 nm at once | Pulsed, broadband | mW – W | Microscopy, metrology, optical testing | You want a laser-like beam with the spectral coverage of a white-light source. |
Start from the job
Buyers usually arrive with a material and a job rather than a laser type.
- Cutting or welding sheet metalFiber lasers
- Cutting acrylic, wood, textiles or foamCO₂ lasers
- Marking serial numbers and codes on metalFiber or DPSS lasers
- Cutting glass, sapphire or display panelsUltrafast lasers
- Machining medical devices where heat damage is unacceptableFemtosecond lasers
- Detecting a gas by its absorptionQuantum cascade lasers
- Pumping another laser, or direct-diode heatingDiode lasers
- Photolithography or corneal surgeryExcimer lasers
- Scanning a wavelength across a spectral featureTunable lasers
- Broadband illumination with a laser-like beamSupercontinuum sources
What actually separates them
Wavelength decides whether the material absorbs it
A laser only does work where its light is absorbed. Metals absorb around 1 µm well, which is why fibre lasers dominate metal processing. Organics and glass barely absorb 1 µm but absorb 10.6 µm strongly, which is why CO₂ lasers cut acrylic and wood. Silicon is transparent at 1.5 µm and opaque at 532 nm. Match the wavelength to the material first; everything else is secondary.
Pulse duration decides how much heat escapes
Continuous-wave light heats, melts and welds. Nanosecond pulses ablate but leave a melted rim. Once pulses fall below a few picoseconds, material is removed before heat can diffuse into the surroundings, so edges come out sharp and unmelted. Shorter pulses cost more, so the honest question is how little heat damage the part can tolerate.
Average power buys throughput, not capability
Power sets how fast you get through the work, not whether the process is possible at all. Average power = pulse energy × repetition rate, so two sources with identical wattage can behave completely differently: one delivering large pulses slowly for deep drilling, the other small pulses quickly for surface texturing.
Beam quality decides the smallest feature
Beam quality (M², or beam parameter product) determines how tightly the beam can be focused and therefore the finest feature achievable. It cannot be recovered downstream with better optics. Fibre and solid-state sources generally offer excellent beam quality; high-power diode sources trade it away for cost and efficiency.
Common comparisons
Fiber laser vs CO₂ laser
The most common decision in the industry, and it is settled by the material rather than by the laser. Fibre emits near 1 µm, which metals absorb efficiently — it cuts and welds metal faster and cheaper to run, with far less maintenance. CO₂ emits at 10.6 µm, which organics absorb strongly and metals reflect, so it remains the better choice for acrylic, wood, textiles, and for clean edges on thick non-metals.
Picosecond vs femtosecond laser micromachining
Both limit heat compared with nanosecond pulses. Picosecond systems cost less and are enough for many industrial jobs; femtosecond systems leave a smaller heat-affected zone and handle transparent and heat-sensitive materials that picosecond pulses damage. Below roughly 300 fs the quality gain per femtosecond shrinks while cost keeps climbing.
Where these suppliers are
328 suppliers in this category, by country of headquarters.
- United States127
- Germany52
- China26
- France19
- Canada14
- United Kingdom13
- Japan9
- Finland7
- Switzerland6
- Lithuania6
- Italy5
- Australia4
Frequently asked questions
›What is the difference between a laser source and a laser system?
The source generates the beam. The system is everything built around it to do a job — beam delivery, a scanner or cutting head, motion, fixturing, extraction, safety enclosure and control software. Integration usually costs more than the source and matters more to whether the process works.
›Which laser type is most common in industry?
Fibre lasers, by a wide margin, for metal cutting, welding and marking. They are efficient, air-cooled at lower powers, have no consumable optics in the beam path and run for tens of thousands of hours with little maintenance. CO₂ remains standard for non-metals.
›Why can't one laser do everything?
Because absorption is wavelength-dependent and there is no wavelength that every material absorbs well. Copper reflects most of a 1 µm beam but absorbs blue light; acrylic is transparent at 1 µm and absorbs 10.6 µm almost completely; silicon is transparent in the near-infrared. The material chooses the laser.
›Does higher power always mean faster processing?
Only up to the point where the process, not the source, becomes the limit. Beyond it, extra power adds heat, dross and distortion rather than speed. Beam quality, pulse duration and assist gas often constrain throughput before wattage does.
›What does the beam quality figure M² mean?
M² compares a real beam with a perfect Gaussian one, where 1.0 is the theoretical best. It sets how tightly the beam can be focused and therefore the smallest feature achievable. A poor M² cannot be corrected with better focusing optics later in the chain.
Suppliers
328 suppliers · showing 24
1ONELASER
1ONELASER supplies VCSEL bare die, SMD devices, COB modules and high-power NIR sources, with custom wavelengths, optical integration and ODM support.
AccuLasers
ACI Laser GmbH
AdTech Photonics Inc.
AdTech Photonics designs and manufactures state-of-the-art mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers for the defense, environmental, and medical industries. We have a full MOCVD semiconductor fabrication and test facility for production and packaging of mid-infrared lasers.
ATL Lasertechnik GmbH
The ATLEX series of short pulse excimer lasers employs state-of-the-art metal-ceramic technology and creates powerful new concepts in equipment and design of the discharge process. The patented OPEC technique of intensified ultra-fast preionization provides highly efficient laser performance with pulse duration of a few nanoseconds and enhanced reliability of all high voltage components.
BEA Lasers
BEA Lasers offers green lasers diode modules in two different styles. The single mode 520nm, or the DPSS 532nm laser. The green laser appears 7 times brighter to the human eye and are used for alignment in the brightly lit areas of your plant.
BIOSPEC
Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre (CPFC)
The Government of Canada website is a single point of access to all programs, services, departments, ministries and organizations of the Government of Canada.
Chengdu Jucan Optoelectronics Technology Co. Ltd.
Creative Technology Lasers
laser modules, laser pointers, OEM laser modules, red pointers, green pointers, self contained laser modules
Cutting Edge Optronics
Northrop Grumman solves the toughest problems in space, aeronautics, defense and cyberspace to meet the ever evolving needs of our customers worldwide. Our 95,000 employees define possible every day using science, technology and engineering to create and deliver advanced systems, products and services.
El.En. SpA, Industrial Div.
Co2 Lasers, Scan heads, Galvanometers: 3 product series with high customization levels to meet even the most demanding production requests.
Elforlight Ltd.
Elforlight Ltd. (an AMS Technologies company) manufactures a range of diode pumped solid state lasers with cutting edge specifications. Based in Daventry, UK, Elforlight offers CW, Q-switched and pulsed laser systems with wavelengths from infrared throug…
Endeavour Laser Technologies Inc.
Solid-state laser, UV, IR, mid-IR, single frequency, Q-switched, modelocked, OPO, SHG, nonlinear optics, diode-pumped, DPSS laser. prototype, Lascad, Zemax
Evolase Oy
About Evolase Evolase was founded in 2021 by a team of engineers with long term experience in fiber optics, high speed electronics, optics and industrial laser systems as spin-off from Aalto University (Espoo, Finland) Due to an extensive know-how in key laser technologies developed by our engineering and scientific team, Evolase offers customized design of the laser sources, which fit best to the
Fastlite
Discover Fastlite's cutting-edge solutions in ultrafast laser pulse control and measurement integrated with Amplitude's femtosecond lasers.
Fibotec Fiberoptics GmbH
Fluence Technology
Fluence Technology is a Polish manufacturer of ultrafast femtosecond laser systems for industrial micromachining. Its lasers are designed for seamless integration and drift-free stability in 24/7 operation.
Global Laser Ltd.
Global Laser Solutions LTD are a specialist designer and manufacturer of laser diode modules covering a wide range of applications. The factory is located in an attractive area of South Wales close to the Brecon Beacons National Park and covers 9500 sq/ft of engineering laboratories, machine shops and a substantial production floor space.
Infrared Instruments Inc.
Our lasers represent a unique and exciting advance in state-of-the-art laser design. Infrared Instruments is well-known for its ultra stable, long-lived; compact CO2 and CO lasers. Located in San Marcos, California, Infrared Instruments designs, develops and manufactures rugged, reliable laser systems which provide a new level of convenience in operation and performance. Our experience and extensi
InPhOE Technologies Inc.
optoelectronics products, fiber optics, pin diodes, Avalanche Photodiodes, APD, PIN Photodiodes, High speed VCSELs, VCSEL array, Custom subassemblies
IPG Genesis Systems
Genesis Systems Group was acquired by IPG Photonics in 2018. You have been redirected to the IPG Photonics site. Genesis Systems continues to deliver the same high-quality systems under IPG Photonics.
Laser-compact Co. Ltd.
ООО «Лазер-экспорт» входит в группу компаний "ЛАЗЕР-КОМПАКТ", известную в России и за рубежом малогабаритными лазерами собственной разработки
Laser Electronics LE GmbH
The success of Laser Electronics is based on the high level of expertise of its employees. Specialists and all-rounders from a wide range of disciplines work together to develop innovative and technologically advanced products.
Sources
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Fiber lasers
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Solid-state lasers
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Laser diodes
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — CO₂ lasers
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Excimer lasers
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Quantum cascade lasers
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Ultrafast lasers
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Tunable lasers
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Supercontinuum generation
- RP Photonics Encyclopedia — Fiber lasers versus bulk lasers — the energy-storage argument behind the fibre/DPSS split
Figures are the commercially common cases, not physics records. Where sources disagree the page gives a range and says so.