Holo/Or has launched adjustable diffractive beam shapers for laser welding and soldering applications.
In many welding applications high powers of up to tens of kilowatt are used, often demanding precise shaping of the spot on the working plane to achieve optimised process parameters. Diffractive optical elements (DOEs) are the most accurate beam shaping solution, having no angular tolerance; they are flat, compact, and passive components. This quality is mostly an advantage, but in some cases, it may be a limitation, as real time adjustment of the welding spot is sometimes desired.
Holo/Or has therefore developed adjustable diffractive beam shapers to combine the accuracy of the passive DOE beam shaping with the versatility of active methods. Adjustable diffractive beam shapers contain multiple optical functions on different areas of the same surface, called sub apertures. These elements can then be assembled with either a beam switching device stirring the beam to each of the areas on a desired regime, or they can be mounted on a motorised or rotation stage, or as a part of a scanning system that directs the beam through different apertures.