The automotive industry is one of the biggest drivers for new industrial laser welding applications. While these laser applications have been dominant in body construction in the last decade, there has now been a shift to new applications in electromobility. This change is shaped by the increased use of copper materials, which is a particular challenge for laser technology. Due to the challenge of high reflectivity of wavelengths in the area of near infrared, it was necessary to develop new kW beam sources in the range of visible wavelength. In particular new processes in the area of heat conduction welding have been enabled by the new laser beam sources. In addition, the high brightness beam sources opened remote scanner welding as well. Industrial applications have become significantly more robust and reproducible.

This article presents the latest results from laser source development and their application in material processing. There is a focus on the production of batteries and electric motors, but applications from other industries are presented, too.

The basis of the new developed laser sources is built by the technology of high power disk lasers. While in the IR area output powers of 20 kW were presented already, in the green wavelength range, output powers of up to 5 kW were achieved in laboratory tests.

This enables remote welding of so-called hairpins as well as the continuous joining of the smallest pipes and tubes made of copper or aluminum, which are used in the IT and medical technology industries, but also enable new concepts in the manufacture of air conditioning systems.