Pure copper layer coating with multibeam laser metal deposition system with blue diode lasers

Abstract

A pure copper layer was produced on a stainless-steel type 304 substrate by using a multi-beam laser metal deposition method with blue diode lasers (B-LMD) to add the antibacterial and virus inactivation effect of pure copper on a highstrength and cost efficient material. To make a copper layer on a substrate by LMD method, beads must be formed continuously at specific intervals and each fabricated bead must be overlapped on the substrate. In this study, to fabricate a high-quality copper layer on a SS304 substrate, the effect of hatching distance (distance between each bead) was investigated. The copper layer was fabricated on the SS304 substrate with a multi-beam B-LMD method at the spot size of 233 µm varying the hatching distance. After the copper coating process, the surface roughness and cross-section of the copper layer were observed. As a result, the surface roughness became high and a large amount of voids were formed inside the layer when the hatching distance was under 150 µm. On the other hand, dilution of copper and SS304 increased as the hatching distance increased.