Laser Welding – Fiber

Fiber Laser Welding Systems are designed with the needs of the precision micro-welding and micro-cutting industry in mind, providing a level of accuracy and consistency previously unavailable. This is made possible due to the unique capabilities of the fiber laser engine, including sub 0.5% pulse-to-pulse energy variation, /-0.5% CW power stability over time, single-mode (TEM00) beam quality and focused spot sizes down to 10μm. These features, coupled with close-loop power feedback, pulse profiling, high energy efficiency and no optical parts to align or calibrate, make the FiberStar laser welding system an attractive laser engine for practical shop floor environments.

Advantages of Fiber Laser Welding Systems

• Fiber laser welding systems do not exhibit the shortcomings in output power, spot size and focal point variations caused by thermal effects on the glass rods of traditional nd:YAG laser welders. 

• Fiber laser welders offer true welding consistency at all power levels, across all pulse sequences and during the entire lifetime of the laser. The laser parameters remain predictable and consistent. The reason for this is that the generation and transport of the laser beam to the work-piece takes place entirely within the confines of a single mode fiber. The beam shaping provided by this fiber neither degrades over time nor changes with laser power – this also makes the laser physically robust and stable, thus suitable for the most challenging of industrial environments.

• Additional advantages of fiber laser welders are the small spot size and high beam quality that translate to high irradiance at the focal plain. Workstations equipped with fiber laser welders can produce better results at lower power levels. The focused beam of energy consistently affects a very small area of metal, providing the benefit of very little heat generated around the weld point.

• High quality, precision laser welding can be performed extremely close (0.1mm) to the most complicated and intricate component parts.

• Fiber laser welding system applications are not limited to just welding. Cutting of medical grade steels and wire end preparation for medical components are both effectively produced with the fiber welding systems.

• From an economics standpoint, the consistent and improved laser welding performance reduces scrap and generates faster production throughput, resulting in a lower cost of ownership and improved laser up-times.

These financial and performance advantages mean that fiber laser technology is now frequently chosen as an upgrade over conventional flash-lamp pumped solid state lasers, or even DPSS laser technology in many other laser-based manufacturing segments. In addition, a small footprint and fast ROI open up markets that were previously out of reach for some laser welding applications.