Now, nearly a decade since the introduction of the high brilliance solid state lasers, an evolution of industrial high power laser materials processing is ongoing.

In this paper will be focused on the largest market for high power lasers: metal laser cutting.

The state-of-the-art of laser cutting with fibre-and disc-lasers will be compared to the benchmarking laser for metal cutting: The CO2-laser.

The opportunities and challenges for the new laser sources in conquering this market will be discussed.

Both classical cutting with gas assistance as well as remote laser cutting will be discussed. State-of-the-art and new directions for the evolution of the laser cutting process will be presented.

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