Green Lasers: The Game-Changer for Copper Processing

Copper is ubiquitous in new energy, AI computing power and power electronics sectors, yet laser processing of copper has long posed a major challenge. When conventional infrared lasers strike copper, the absorption rate stays below 10%; most energy is reflected, resulting in unstable molten pools, severe spattering, and recurring issues such as pores and cold solder joints. The advent of green lasers is reshaping this landscape.

Why Green Laser?

Copper achieves an absorption rate of over 40% for 532 nm green light, nearly an eightfold increase compared with infrared wavelengths. This shift in physical properties transforms copper processing from “barely feasible” to “consistently reliable”.

In new energy battery manufacturing, green laser welding of copper busbars and tabs enables deep penetration welding with nearly spatter-free welds, and joint density exceeding 99.5%. In additive manufacturing, green lasers boost pure copper’s laser absorption rate from 5% to above 40%, with printable layer thickness up to 50 micrometers and substantially higher efficiency than traditional infrared solutions. More importantly, green lasers move pure copper additive manufacturing from “prototyping capability” to “mass-production readiness”. Microchannel structures at the 150-micron level and ultra-thin walls of 0.1 mm can be fabricated in a single process. Pure copper heat sinks made via additive manufacturing deliver over 40% higher heat dissipation efficiency than those produced by conventional methods.

Market Status and Challenges

On the application side, growth drivers for green laser demand have shifted from traditional display and medical sectors to three major areas: new energy battery welding, pure copper additive manufacturing, and heat dissipation for AI computing. With marked improvements in yield and efficiency, the overall cost of green-laser pure copper additive manufacturing will keep declining, which will greatly advance its mass adoption in high-end fields including aerospace, new energy vehicles and AI chip thermal management.

Nevertheless, challenges remain. The core components of green lasers — gallium nitride-based frequency-doubling crystals and fiber coupling modules — still have limited domestic localization. High-power green lasers also carry higher costs than infrared products of equivalent power. Three hurdles: efficiency, yield and cost, still separate “printable capability” from “stable mass printing”.

The development path is clear, however. As AI computing power continues to scale up, copper consumption will only rise. Green laser represents the most technically viable route for copper processing available today. Over the next two to three years, competition in this sector will center on boosting output power, cutting costs and stabilizing production lines.