Lab scale additive manufacturing of Fe-Nd-B based powders was performed to realize bulk nanocrystalline Fe-Nd-B based permanent magnets. For fabrication a special inert gas process chamber for laser powder bed fusion was used. Inspired by the nanocrystalline ribbon structures, well-known from melt-spinning, the concept was successfully transferred to the additive manufactured parts. For example, for Nd16.5-Pr1.5-Zr2.6-Ti2.5-Co2.2-Fe65.9-B8.8 (excess rare earth (RE) = Nd, Pr; the amount of additives was chosen following Magnequench (MQ) powder composition) a maximum coercivity of µ₀H_c = 1.16 T, remanence J_r = 0.58 T and maximum energy density of (BH)_max = 62.3 kJ/m³ have been achieved. The most important prerequisite to develop nanocrystalline printed parts with good magnetic properties is to enable rapid solidification during selective laser melting. This is made possible by a shallow melt pool during laser melting. Melt pool depths as low as 20 to 40 µm have been achieved. The printed bulk nanocrystalline Fe-Nd-B based permanent magnets have the potential to realize magnets known so far as polymer bonded magnets without polymer.

In this study a new approach to laser polishing with periodic modulated laser power in the kilohertz regime is introduced. By varying the modulation frequency and modulation time, different periodic laser power curves with varying minimum, peak and average laser power can be created. The feasibility of the method is shown by polishing of vertical built AlSi10Mg L-PBF parts with an initial roughness of Ra = 12.22 µm. One polishing pass revealed a decreasing surface roughness with increasing energy density on the surface up to Ra = 0.145 µm. An increasing energy density results in a rising remelting depth between 50 and 255 µm and a rising relative porosity of 0.3% to 4.6%. Furthermore, the thermal process stability, analysed by the melt pool length in scanning direction, reveals a steadily increasing melt pool dimension due to component heating. Multiple laser polishing passes offers a further reduced surface roughness, especially at higher modulation frequencies and provides an improved orientation independent roughness homogeneity. The process stability regarding varying initial surface roughness revealed an almost constant relative roughness reduction rate with an achievable roughness variation after two polishing passes between Ra = 0.13–0.26 µm from an initial state of Ra = 8.0–19.2 µm.

In this study, the influence of laser polishing on the microstructural and mechanical properties of additively manufactured aluminium AlSi10Mg Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) parts is analysed. The investigation is carried out on a 5-axis laser cell equipped with 1D Scanner optics driven by a solid-state disc laser at a wavelength of 1030 nm. Laser polishing is performed with pulsed or continuous laser radiation on samples in the initial L-PBF state or after stress relief treatment in a furnace. The metallurgical investigation of the remelting zone with a depth of 101–237 µm revealed an unchanged and homogeneous chemical composition, with a coarsened α-phase and a changed grain structure. The hardness within the remelting zone is reduced to 102–104 HV 0.1 compared to 146 HV 0.1 at the L-PBF initial state. Below the remelting zone, within the heat affected zone, a reduced microhardness, which can reach a thickness up to 1.5 mm, occurs. Laser polishing results in a reduction in residual stresses and resulting distortions compared to the L-PBF initial state. Nevertheless, the re-solidification shrinkage of the polished surface layer introduces additional tensions, resulting in sample distortions well above ones remaining after a stress relieve heat treatment of the initial state. The mechanical properties, analysed on laser polished flat tensile specimens, revealed an increase in the ultimate elongation from 4.5% to 5.4–10.7% and a reduction in the tensile strength from 346 N/mm² to 247–271 N/mm² through laser polishing. Hence, the strength resulting from this is comparable to the initial L-PBF specimens after stress relieve heat treatment.

Perforation of lithium-ion battery electrodes has recently become an increasing interest in science and industry. Perforated electrodes have shown improved electrochemical properties compared to conventional, nonperforated electrodes. It has been demonstrated that through perforation, the fast-charging capability and the lifetime of these batteries can be significantly improved. The electrodes for lithium-ion batteries consist of a copper foil onto which the electrode material is applied as a porous layer. This layer is mainly composed of active material particles, which are bound together by a binder phase. Here, synthetic graphite was used as an active material. Up to now, it has been shown that an advantageous and precise perforation geometry can be produced by ultrashort laser pulse ablation. Since the ablation volumes during perforation of the porous electrode material with ultrashort laser pulses are unusually high compared to solids, this work investigates the parameter dependency on the ablation mechanisms in detail. For this purpose, in particular, single-pulse ablation was investigated with respect to the ablation thresholds at different pulse durations. The pulse durations were varied over a large range from 400 fs to 20 ps. By varying the number of pulses per perforation up to 50 and the single-pulse energy up to 45 μJ, it could be shown that a homogeneous ablation down to the conductor foil through the 63 μm thick active material layer can be achieved.

Additive-manufacturing-based joining methods enable tailored or even functionalized joints and allow for hybridization at small scales. The current study explored an innovative joining method for aluminum cast alloys (AlSi12) with thermoset carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) via laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The direct build-up of AlSi12 on a CFRP substrate proved to be challenging due to the dissimilar thermal properties of the considered materials, which led to substrate damage and low joint adhesion. These effects could be overcome by introducing an AlSi12 foil as an interlayer between the two joining partners, acting as a thermal barrier and further improving the AlSi12 melt wettability of the substrate. Within LPBF, the energy input in the form of volumetric laser energy density influenced both the porosity of the fused layers and the formation of thermally induced stresses due to the high cooling rates and different thermal expansion properties of the materials. While the AlSi12 volume density increased with a higher laser energy input, simultaneously increasing thermal stresses caused the debonding and deformation of the AlSi12 foil. However, within a narrow processing window of laser parameters, the samples achieved remarkably high shear strengths of τ > 20 MPa, comparable to those of conventional joining methods.

The microstructural optimization of lithium-ion battery (LiB) electrodes has recently gained a lot of interest. Versatile approaches to enhance fast charging abilities of LiB electrodes are the subject of current research. One of these approaches is the laser based photothermic removal of superficial inactive electrode components in order to improve the accessibility of the active material particles for the lithium-ions. In this work, we established a thermophysical model to describe the temperature fields within the electrode resulting from laser material processing. The model delivers satisfying results regarding the prediction of the removal of the top surface electrode layer that mainly consists of a binder and conductive additives. Lining up a simple approach of estimating the average depth in which the inactive binder-additive compound is selectively removed from the electrode's active mass layer led to a good agreement between the calculated and experimental results. Additionally, a potential negative thermal impact on the active material particles themselves due to the laser processing is evaluated. The established model can be used to optimize laser parameters in order to simultaneously maximize the selectively ablated inactive material and to minimize the thermal impact on the active material particles. Moreover, the model is capable of being transferred to laser processing of other types of composite materials such as LiB-anodes or carbon fiber reinforced polymers.