Seeing green with copper welding lasers
German powertrain supplier Vitesco Technologies is using green lasers to mass-produce battery management electronics for BMW, helping to reduce energy consumption compared with traditional infrared lasers. Typically, infrared lasers show up in the copper welding process, but they can be difficult to control and require significant energy, according to Vitesco. Green lasers, however, have shorter wavelengths than infrared lasers, cutting down on energy consumption by as much as 20 percent and allowing for a more controlled — and therefore more efficient — copper welding process. The laser systems Vitesco uses are developed by German laser technology company Trumpf.