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What Is Laser Cutting Kerf?

Published:2026-06-29

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Laser cutting kerf is the strip of material a focused laser beam vaporises as it travels through a workpiece, and its width decides whether your finished parts assemble cleanly or end up as scrap.

In production fabrication, kerf widths typically sit between 0.08 mm and 1 mm — small numbers that compound fast.

A 0.1 mm kerf deviation repeated across ten mating components produces a 1 mm cumulative offset, which is enough to fail an inspection on a tightly toleranced bracket or housing.

You’ll find that kerf isn’t a fixed property of the machine. It shifts with laser type, beam focus, assist gas pressure, focal position, material thickness, and the alloy you’re cutting.

Fiber laser cutting, with its smaller focused spot, generally produces a narrower kerf than CO2 cutting at the same power class — and that difference changes how you set tolerances, nesting, and CAD compensation.

Laser cutting kerf is the channel of material removed by a focused laser beam as it passes through a workpiece, measured as the gap between the two cut edges left behind.

It is not the same as beam width — beam width describes the diameter of the focused laser spot, while kerf describes the total material loss across that cut, including the molten and vaporised zone the assist gas evacuates.Beneath that definition sits a more practical reality.

When the beam contacts mild steel, aluminium, or stainless, it vaporises and melts a sliver of material that the assist gas — oxygen, nitrogen, or compressed air — blows clear of the cut line.The width of that sliver is your kerf.

On a 4 kW fiber laser cutting 2 mm mild steel, kerf will often measure 0.15–0.25 mm while on a CO2 machine cutting the same gauge, you’ll typically see 0.30–0.45 mm.

A laser-cut kerf is rarely a perfectly parallel-sided slot. It’s slightly tapered — usually wider at the top surface where the beam enters and narrower at the bottom where it exits, often by 0.02–0.05 mm on thin sheet and more on thick plate.

Running alongside the kerf is a thin heat-affected zone (HAZ), a narrow band of base metal whose microstructure has been altered by the cutting temperature without being removed. Both dimensions — kerf width and HAZ width — are physical properties of the cut itself, set by laser source, focal position, and assist gas pressure.

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