Laser welding system and methods with an array of laser diodes with a common lens spaced apart from the laser array

摘要

A laser welding system (10) includes a free-spacing beam delivery laser head (12) having a linear array of laser diodes (14), each (14) generating a laser beam (16) adapted to weld a workpiece (18) having a first component (20) and at least one other component (22) to be welded to component (20). Component (20) is substantially transmissive to the laser beam wavelength, and component (22) is substantially absorptive of the wavelength. A lens (24) is spaced a predetermined distance from each of the laser diodes (14), each of the lenses (24) adapted to focus the respective laser beam (16) into a focused laser beam segment (1), thereby forming a continuous line of laser energy (L) from a substantially serial combination of each segment (1), the line of laser energy (L) being in a plane containing the workpiece (18), the line (L) being substantially orthogonal to a direction (W) of workpiece (18) translation.