MICRO WELDING WITH PULSED SINGLE MODE FIBER LASERS

Paper M501, Proceedings of the 23 rd International Congress on
Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics 2004

: Klaus F. Kleine 1, William J. Fox 1, Ken G. Watkins 2

1 – Laser Group, Guidant Corp., 3200 Lakeside Dr., Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA 2 – Laser Group, Department of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Street. Liverpool L69 3GH, UK

Abstract: Many applications in the electronics, telecom and medical device industry require smaller and smaller laser joining areas. In order to adapt the processing speed to the average laser power pulsed laser operation is desired. Gated CW fiber lasers could provide pulsed laser operation with sufficient power stability. Some welding applications require focus spot diameters in the order of 25 µm and pulse energy levels as low as 10 mJ. The fiber laser’s excellent single mode beam quality will provide the desired spot size and laser power density. In addition many emerging micro welding applications require excellent power stability at low pulse energy levels to provide sufficient process yields. This paper will provide data about the power stability of pulsed fiber lasers and will show first micro welding results for a range of materials with a pulsed fiber laser system.