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

Is ultrafast machining worth the cost over nanosecond pulses?

Accepted Answer

Only where the thermal damage from the cheaper process creates a downstream cost. Ultrafast wins when it removes an operation (recast removal, deburring), removes a scrap rate on parts that already carry accumulated value, reduces a qualification burden, or makes a feature possible at all. Compared purely on machine hourly rate it loses almost every time — which is why that comparison sends people to the wrong answer.

Ultrafast & Precision Micromachining

Ultrafast lasers solved the quality problem. Throughput is the remaining one

"Cold ablation" is a useful simplification that hides where the heat goes

Filamentation cutting made thin glass a manufacturable material

Microvia drilling is where laser throughput meets substrate reality

Polygon scanners lifted the ceiling that galvanometers imposed

Burst mode changed how energy gets into the material

Laser-induced surface structures moved from curiosity to specification

Stealth dicing wins on kerf, ablation wins on tolerance for the unexpected

Ultrafast sources became production equipment when they stopped needing an optics bench

Medical micromachining is a tolerance problem before it is a laser problem

Two-photon polymerisation builds structures smaller than the beam that writes them

Ultrafast drilling of turbine cooling holes trades speed for a missing recast layer