Laser joining

Joining with laser radiation is a technology that has long been industrially established for joining a wide variety of materials. Primarily materials of the same type are joined by melting processes with and without additive material supply by local melting of both joining partners. Especially due to the high intensity and the short interaction time between laser beam and material, the deposited energy in the component can be significantly minimized compared to other joining processes. This results in low heat influences and low distortion, so that reworking and straightening is usually not necessary. The short interaction times also result in material-technical advantages, as mixing processes of different material proportions can be largely avoided, thus reducing the formation of brittle hard phases. New wavelengths enable increased efficiency in the joining of metallic materials as well as in the joining of thermoplastics through improved energy coupling with significantly increased process stability. Thanks to the possibility of in-situ process control, all laser joining processes can be monitored during the process and thus allow for complete process documentation.