Starting Sales of the “BRACE™ X” Blue-IR Hybrid Laser with a 1kW blue laser

Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. (Head Office: 2-6-4 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President: Keiichi Kobayashi) will start sales on January 26, 2022 of the BRACE™ X, a new blue-IR hybrid laser oscillator that combines a blue direct diode laser (blue-DDL) and near-infrared (IR) fiber laser.
Furukawa Electric is dedicated to advancing the operational performance of hybrid lasers, a core technology supporting electric vehicles (xEV) manufacturing, and while working to become the defacto standard in copper laser processing we will increase the production efficiency of the main xEV components and contribute to the realization of a sustainable society.

Directed at becoming carbon neutral in the 2050s, efforts are being made to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO₂. From the perspective of mobility electrification, the production of essential xEV components including batteries, motors and inverters is expected to grow dramatically, and the need for laser welding that reduces manpower within the manufacturing process is increasing. High expectations exist for the use of laser welding to weld the rectangular magnet wires in segment conductor (SC) motors and to weld copper busbars over 2mm thick in the powertrain of xEV. We have already developed laser welding technology for copper combining IR fiber lasers and our independent beam mode control technology, as well as laser welding technology for pure copper with the BRACE™ I. However, there remained issues with these technologies, including the amount of spatter generated during processing and the limited range of applications compared to thickness of the material that can be welded. The newly developed BRACE™ X (Fig. 1) is equipped with a higher output blue laser and can be used for the main applications involving copper materials in xEV powertrains.

BRACE™ X (BR1030) is equipped with a hybrid laser oscillator than combines a 1kW blue laser (300μm core diameter) and 3kW IR fiber laser (50μm core diameter). The blue laser output is about 7 times higher and IR laser output is 3 times higher than the 150W blue laser and 1kW IR laser equipped in BRACE™ I (launched on January 25, 2021). By applying the high output, high reliability, high beam quality blue semiconductor laser technology newly developed by Nichia Corporation and the optical component multiplexing technology accumulated by Furukawa Electric in relation to fiber lasers, the BRACE™ X, with its 1kW blue laser (300μm fiber core diameter), is equipped with a blue DDL having one of the world’s highest optical densities of 1.4MW/cm² (Fig. 2). Through this high light concentrating blue DDL, it is also possible to use a galvanometer scanner that can control the lasers and irradiation at high speed and simultaneously for the two wavelengths of 465nm and 1070nm. In addition, it is possible to individually activate the blue DDL and IR fiber laser, and by utilizing the beam mode control technology for the IR fiber laser, the BRACE™ X can also be used to process standard and stainless steel and aluminum, as well as weld dissimilar metals such as copper and aluminum.
The BRACE™ X will be installed in the Application Lab at the Chiba Works (Ichihara City, Chiba Prefecture) in March 2022.

Using a galvanometer scanner with BRACE™ X laser enables high-speed welding of SC motors using rectangular magnet wires. In addition, the stronger 1kW blue laser equipped in the BRACE™ X makes it possible to maintain the standard target laser welding speed of 0.1 s / point even when there is a gap or uneven height in the rectangular magnet wires being joined. Also, the spatter generated during welding can be reduced by controlling the heat input from the blue laser, thus reducing the impact on areas outside of the weld. Because the overall laser output can be lowered, along with reducing the impact on the insulation layer when welding rectangular magnet wires of SC motors, power consumption can be reduced by about 30% compared to our existing 6kW fiber laser (FEC6000M).

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