Development of 100W class blue direct diode laser coating system for laser metal deposition

Laser cladding technique is widely used for industrial application such as oil, energy industry, and aircraft and so on because it is able to repair and to form a near net shape. This process have been employed infrared lasers with wavelength of 0.8-10.6 mu m since output power of these lasers have over 1000W. Metal processing efficiency was, however, low in these wavelength, because the absorption was low. Thus, we developed the laser cladding system with blue direct diode laser at the wavelength of 445nm. 6 blue diode lasers was combined on the focusing spot to reach the output power of 100W by a lens, which one blue diode laser module was maximum output power of 20W. By using this laser cladding system, a pure copper film coating on a SUS304 stainless steel plate was demonstrated from a copper powder. As the result, the copper layer was formed on SUS304 stainless steel plate at the width of 322 mu m and thickness of 534 mu m was formed on the substrate.