Laserdurchstrahlschweißen transparenter Kunststoffe. Tl.3: Technisch-wirtschaftliche Aspekte

Practical aspects, above all the selection of components, are described in this last part of the total of three articles about the absorber-free laser beam welding of transparent polymers. The centre piece is the laser beam source which has a wavelength range from 1,500µnm to 2,000µnm and is commercially available as a semiconductor or bre laser in the power range up to120µW. Wide welds for encapsulation applications can be manufactured with diode lasers by choosing corresponding optical units. Basic-mode bre lasers with low diffraction indices M² are available for ligree micro fluidic channels. Processing units each with a pyrometer, a dichroic mirror and clocked laser operation with signal detection in the pulse pause are suitable for process control / heat signal acquisition. The fundamentals of the energy input and a process simulation are explained in Part 1 of the series of articles. Part 2 describes welding results on transparent PC with 1,940µnm laser radiation.