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Welding by fiber laser

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15.10.2008

Medical products and components in the bio-engineering and bio-analysis sector have to be made from highly bio-compatible materials that are inert vis-à-vis a variety of media. The joining method employed also has to meet special requirements.

It has to get by with as few additive materials as possible, and should under no circumstances influence or contaminate the materials. As an alternative to conventional joining techniques, laser welding offers a number of innovative solutions featuring high welding speeds, narrow weld seams and special process variants for joining transparent plastics.

A series of new beam sources enables laser characteristics to be specially adapted to these tasks. Highly advanced microsystems with complex welding contours for medical engineering and biotechnological applications, such as a new type of microfluidic chip with very narrow and closely spaced channels, make great demands on joining technology. The new chip has to be furnished with a cover film, for which the welding seam must be no more than 100µm wide.

The new TWIST® (Transmission Welding by Incremental Scanning Technique) contour-welding method developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT meets these stringent requirements, producing high-quality welding seams at high process speeds. Based on fiber lasers, this innovative irradiation method can produce 100-µm-wide seams at a rate of up to 18 m/min.

Any potential degradation of the material due to the high intensity of the focused fiber laser light is avoided in the new process. For the welding of transparent plastics, the new beam sources enable the laser characteristics to be adapted to the polymers' absorption behavior, thus obviating the need for additional absorbers. This improved irradiation strategy preserves the advantages of laser transmission beam welding without influencing the surfaces of the components. It can be used for transparent and translucent polymers.

Contacts at the Fraunhofer ILT

If you have any questions regarding this topic, please feel free to contact our experts:

Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT
Aachen, Germany

Dr. Alexander Olowinsky
Group manager packaging and interconnection
Micro technology department
Phone +49 241 8906-491
alexander.olowinsky@ilt.fraunhofer.de

Dr. Arnold Gillner
Head of the micro technology department
Phone +49 241-8906-148
arnold.gillner@ilt.fraunhofer.de

For any other questions or finding special experts please contact:

Dipl.-Phys. Axel Bauer
Head of marketing and communications
Fraunhofer-Institut für Lasertechnik ILT
Aachen, Germany
Phone: +49/241/8906-194
Fax: +49/241/8906-121
axel.bauer@ilt.fraunhofer.de

Axel Bauer | Source: Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Further information: www.ilt.fraunhofer.de

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