FEATURE ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
Why blue and green lasers are booming in 3D printing
Abigail Williams explores the speed, precision and environmental advantages on offer from green and blue lasers in the additive manufacturing space
A
n increasing number of companies are focusing on the development of advanced green and blue lasers for use in laser-
based additive manufacturing (AM) – and there is a growing awareness of their utility in a wide range of applications. So, what are some of the key current applications of green and blue lasers in AM? What are the main advantages of using them – especially when compared with existing approaches? And what sector-wide innovations and trends can we expect in this area in the coming years?
Printing complex copper components According to Professor Bill O’Neill, Director of the Centre for Industrial Photonics at the University of Cambridge, lasers with visible wavelengths have, until recently, been primarily confined to research and development stages within the AM machine industry, and “have not yet achieved widespread integration or utilisation”. “The applications of green and blue
lasers in AM are still being developed. With potential applications being largely based around copper and its alloys,” he says. This is because the effectiveness and
consistency of laser material processing of metallic materials depends on their absorbance and reflectance characteristics. These, in turn, depend on the electronic structure of the metal atom. “Transition metals, elements found
between group 3 and group 12 of the periodic table – for example, titanium, iron, copper and silver – demonstrate an increased absorption with shorter wavelengths,” explains O’Neill. Copper, for example, absorbs around 13 times more
16 Electro Optics February 2024
Green lasers such as those in Trumpf’s TruPrint 5000 system have proven especially effective at printing a range of copper parts such as gas coolers, fluid mixers, semiconductor coolers, shaſt inductors and heat exchangers
light at a wavelength of 450nm compared with the traditional fibre laser operating at 1,064nm – making blue (450nm) and also green (515nm) lasers “particularly attractive for AM applications that could see increased process stability, better part quality, greater speeds, and lower costs”. Applications of visible wavelength lasers include the printing of: “Complex cooling and heating circuits enabling advances in power electronics and heat pumps; induction coils that could be designed to affect greater transfer of thermal energy to parts during manufacture; bus bars for electrical systems, and rocket nozzles,” he told Electro Optics. A wider range of components for high current applications, such as in
“The blue laser can process a wider range of materials than an IR laser, enabling a material agnostic AM system”
electromagnets, circuit breakers, high- capacity batteries, supercapacitors, and electric motors, will also be printable using visible wavelength lasers, says O’Neill. One of the early pioneers in the
development of green lasers for use in AM processes was German industrial machine manufacturing company Trumpf – whose large-format TruPrint 5000 system can be equipped with a green laser to enable the
www.electrooptics.com
Trumpf
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