Technique Aids in Copper Additive Manufacturing

Uppsala University researchers, in collaboration with graphene materials company Graphmatech, demonstrated a method for lowering the reflectivity of copper powder. The work could lead to more densely printed parts through laser additive manufacturing (AM). Copper poses certain challenges in the context of AM; at the wavelengths commonly used in laser powder bed fusion, which is the most common technique in metal AM, only a small portion of the energy is absorbed by the material, which results in low-density printed parts. A newly introduced graphene coating significantly lowered the reflectivity of the copper powder. Courtesy of Uppsala University and Graphmatech. With Graphmatech’s technology, the researchers — led...