The primary drivers in Microtechnology are getting smaller in size, increased sophistication and complexity, greater local intelligence, increased predication of in-service reliability and lower cost. These trends result in the need for new materials and assembly technologies and are consequently the adoption of pulsed laser as production tools. In order to adapt the processing speed to the average laser power pulsed laser operation is desirable. Currently some welding applications require very small spot size (30-40µm) and pulse energies low as 10mJ.
Low power pulsed Nd: YAG lasers can provide the desired spot size and the laser parameters ideally suited for micro- welding of thin materials (40µm- 1000µm). In addition many micro- welding applications require good pulse-to-pulse satiability and good power stability at low pulse energy levels to provide sufficient process yield.
This paper will provide micro-welding data on a range of materials with a 125W pulsed Nd: YAG laser and also some results obtained with a 100W continuous wave (CW) fiber laser.