Lasers with a power of up to 10 kW are used for laser welding of metal. The laser beam is focused onto metal components, for example, via a deflection mirror in order to weld them together. Copper mirrors from Pleiger Laseroptik are the first choice for high-power lasers.
For laser cutting and welding systems, Pleiger Laseroptik supplies mirrors and focusing lenses that meet the highest standards of precision and material quality required for laser welding for joining or cutting metals and plastics. As a rule, mirror optics that are cooled directly are used for higher laser powers. For this purpose, metal mirrors made of copper are used in welding and cutting optics, for example, because materials are required here that must withstand the sometimes extreme thermal loads. Concave or convex mirror surfaces focus, widen or deflect the laser beam as required. Finally, a focusing mirror bundles the laser beam and directs it directly onto the workpiece to be processed.
In all areas of application, copper mirrors, which are available from Pleiger Laser Optics in planar, spherical, parabolic, toric or cylindrical versions as required, guarantee optimum performance. At Pleiger, we manufacture copper mirrors with dielectric or metallic coatings in our own development department with the highest quality standards exactly according to the specifications of our customers.
Copper mirrors are generally used where particularly high laser powers can lead to extremely high heating of the substrates. After all, uncoated copper mirrors absorb up to 2%, while coated ones absorb < 0.2% of the power of a laser during operation. In this context, copper proves to be particularly suitable for such extreme conditions due to its excellent thermal conductivity with appropriate heat dissipation and also offers further advantages over other materials in terms of mechanical stability.
Welding with the laser is predominantly carried out without the addition of filler materials. Laser welding is up to eight times faster than conventional welding processes. The low energy transfer into the workpiece to be processed through precise and power-dense focusing on the focal spot results in hardly measurable thermal distortion. In this context, the process is equally suitable for environments with thermo-sensitive materials such as plastics or glass.
Let us advise you or contact the experts at Pleiger Laseroptik here. Find out more about our optics for laser material processing and optical systems in our webshop.