Blue laser technology becomes the key to breakthrough! The challenge of highly reflective materials in 3D printing has been overcome, accelerating the arrival of the consumer market.

As a core component of additive manufacturing, 3D printing lasers have been applied to a wide range of materials, including metal powder, nylon powder, and ceramic powder, and have been widely used in key industrial fields such as medical, aerospace, automotive, and jewelry design. With the continuous iteration of semiconductor laser technology, the personalized needs of individual studios for 3D printing technology are gradually being met, and breakthroughs in the printing of highly reflective materials have become an important opportunity to drive the industry towards the consumer market.

Infrared Lasers Encounter Bottlenecks: Printing Highly Reflective Materials Presents Challenges

Among the many materials used in 3D printing, metal powders are highly favored in industrial applications due to their excellent thermal and electrical conductivity. However, processing them using mainstream infrared lasers presents numerous difficulties. Industry data shows that metal powders have a reflectivity of up to 90% for 1064nm infrared lasers. This makes it difficult for the material to absorb enough energy to complete sintering and shaping, necessitating the use of infrared lasers with power exceeding kilowatts to ensure printing quality.

High power not only leads to high energy consumption but also results in bulky equipment and high costs, severely limiting the widespread adoption of infrared laser 3D printing in the consumer market. Overcoming the bottleneck in printing highly reflective materials has become a core demand for technological upgrades in the industry.

Blue Laser Breakthrough: Low Power, High Absorption Opens a New Track

To overcome the limitations of infrared lasers, the industry has shifted its research focus to short-wavelength lasers with higher metal absorption rates, among which 450nm blue lasers stand out. Research shows that metal powders can absorb over 40% of 450nm blue light, with some highly reflective metals like pure copper achieving up to 65%, equivalent to 13 times that of infrared lasers. This characteristic makes low-power 3D printing possible.

Laboratory test data confirms the advantages of blue lasers: using a 40W blue laser 3D printing sintering stainless steel powder, the laser spot can be controlled within 0.5mm. By converting continuous laser light into pulsed output via a PWM signal, and then stacking layers after directional adjustment by a galvanometer, 3D objects can be precisely formed. Compared to traditional infrared lasers, blue lasers are only one-fifth the size, making them easier to integrate into small sintering 3D printers, making them an ideal choice for consumer-grade sintering 3D printing.

BU-LASER offers professional OEM/ODM services for lasers spanning 375nm–980nm. We provide 425nm–460nm blue diode lasers (1W–80W) — ideal for SLS 3D printing applications. For more details, contact Song Song at song@bu-laser.com.