Nowadays, laser welding, cutting, and marking are widely used in industrial production. Many new terms are sometimes difficult to understand, and you can’t even figure out what they mean. For example, we are talking about single-mode and multi-mode lasers today. What are the differences, and what are the advantages or characteristics of each?

In fact, single-mode and multi-mode are like the image of a person and a group of people. In a laser, it is the relationship between a pump source and multiple pump sources. The laser states they emit are also different. Single-mode laser It has a Gaussian distribution, the energy is concentrated in the center, and the beam quality is relatively good. However, because the multi-mode laser is output by the laser from multiple pump sources through the beam combining component, its beam takes on the shape of an inverted paper, and the energy distribution is small, but the beam is The quality is not as high as that of single-mode. Does this mean that multi-mode is not as good as single-mode? In fact, it is not. Let’s continue the analysis below.

Different application fields:

The application fields of single-mode and multi-mode lasers are different. We know that the energy of single-mode is relatively concentrated, which is like what we call "concentrate on doing big things." In the welding or cutting of stainless steel, carbon steel, etc. of 1MM and below, single-mode The processing efficiency of the mold is faster and the production efficiency is high. Compared with the multi-mold, the quality is actually similar, but the cutting speed is a little behind the former.  Let’s look at thick resolution cutting of 2MM and above. Whether it is cutting quality or efficiency, high-power multi-mode lasers have obvious advantages.

Back to our welding, in heat conduction welding, the welds welded by single-mode lasers are smoother and more stable, so they are generally used in the welding of thin metal materials, such as: the welding of the tabs of Pouch  batteries;

In thick metal, welding that requires high power requires a multi-mode laser, and the aspect ratio of the weld is more advantageous, such as in Prismatic cell battery packs;

In deep penetration welding, multi-mode lasers can obtain welds with a better aspect ratio, such as Prismatic cell battery pack bus welding.

Multimode laser welding effect

Summarize

The single-mode and multi-mode lasers are only the characteristics of the laser and do not mean good or bad. Their application fields are different. Generally, single-mode lasers can be used for thin plates and small and medium power, while high-power and thick metal plates can be used. Multi-mode lasers, on the contrary, using single-mode lasers for thick metal plates will be insufficient, and the quality of the cutting and welding process will definitely not be good. If multi-mode is applied to thin plates, it will only burn the thin plates, so we need to according to the welding needs Select the laser mode.