Photo and cross-section of a micro electronic component (IC) on an interconnect device with laser welded contact (copper alloy, frequency-converted solid-state laser)

SEM-micrograph of a laser welded medical implant for the radio-seed-therapy (titanium alloy, fiber laser)

Cross-section of a membrane welding (thickness of membrane 20µm, stainless steel alloy, fiber laser)

The trend to miniaturization of components in the electronic production, medical and precision mechanic technologies has led to a considerable increase in demands over the past few years. At this point, laser joining is an alternative to the conventional resistance welding and brazing for several reasons: since the laser intensity is both locally as well as temporally scalable in great ranges, joining processes with an individually adjustable energy input are possible. Further advantages are the reduced requirements on the accessibility of the joining zone and the greater temperature resistance of the seams. Compared to electron beam welding, laser welding does not require a vacuum workroom.

Depending on the application, continuous wave (cw) lasers with high brilliance (e.g. fiber lasers) or pulsed solid-state lasers can be used. Materials, frequently used for laser micro welding, are copper, steel and titanium alloys. Doing both fundamental research and application development, the LZH is concerned with the developments in the field of laser micro-welding within the framework of publically funded and industrial research projects.

Services

• Fundamental research
• Feasibility studies
• Process development
• Characterization via
  • Scanning electron microscope
  • Metallographical images
  • Shear and tensile tests
  • Confocal microscopy
  • Four-terminal sensing of the electric contact resistance
• Small batch production
• Equipment design and realization
• consulting

Laser sources

• Lasag SLS200 CL60,
• Lasag SLS200 CL16,
• Fiber laser SPI200,
• Miyachi ML-8050A