Metal additive manufacturing is experiencing rapid growth across various industries, including aerospace, marine, electronics, and automotive. This technology enables the creation of complex, lightweight, and highly durable components. Among the materials used, copper stands out for its exceptional electrical and thermal conductivity, resistance to atmospheric and marine corrosion, and excellent ductility and toughness, making it particularly attractive for advanced manufacturing. These properties have made copper one of the most widely used metals in engineering applications.
However, manufacturing with copper presents specific challenges, especially when using traditional laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) techniques. Pure copper has a very low absorption rate for infrared lasers, less than 10%. Thus, high-power infrared lasers can lead to excessive vaporization and spattering, which can have a negative impact on the final product. These effects include reduced material density, increased porosity, and diminished thermal and electrical conductivity. Additionally, when the reflected light is over 90%, it can damage the 3D printer’s optical components.
ADDIREEN, a Chinese manufacturer, is leading innovations in green laser technology for metal additive manufacturing. Its industrial green laser metal 3D printers mark a breakthrough over traditional infrared-based systems, delivering superior performance in processing highly reflective and refractory materials. With the ability to produce pure copper parts at over 99.8% density and a minimum wall thickness of only 0.08 mm, ADDIREEN’s technology significantly enhances part quality and precision, fully realizing the potential of copper in advanced manufacturing.
Advantages of Green Laser Technology
A green laser has a much higher absorption rate on copper than an infrared laser. As the graph below shows, the green laser is more effective at melting copper and its alloys, gold, platinum, and other materials with high reflectivity and thermal conductivity. Therefore, LPBF technology based on green lasers can achieve high-quality and efficient 3D printing of pure copper and copper alloys.
Absorption Rate of Green Laser vs. Infrared Laser (Image courtesy: Addireen Technologies)
ADDIREEN’s high-power, single-mode, continuous green fiber laser offers advantages such as shorter wavelength, high beam quality, exceptional stability, and finer focused spot. It offers enhanced forming efficiency, better quality, higher printing resolution, and a larger process window for additive manufacturing of pure copper, copper alloys, pure tungsten, stainless steel and other materials.
Leveraging advanced green laser technology, ADDIREEN enables the production of 3D-printed metal parts with exceptional efficiency, quality, and precision. Metallographic image demonstrates components capable of withstanding water pressures over 8 MPa, with electrical conductivity approaching 100% IACS and thermal conductivity around 390 W/m·K. The green laser system also supports ultra-fine features, including wall thicknesses as low as 0.05 mm.
Aerospace thrust chamber printed in CuCrZr (Image courtesy: Addireen Technologies)
Addireen’s green laser metal 3D printing has been widely applied in aerospace, new energy vehicles, semiconductor heat sink components, induction heating coils, and high-speed communication devices. Some application examples are shown in the pictures.
High-frequency induction heating coil printed in pure copper (Image courtesy: Addireen Technologies)
IGBT heat dissipation base plate printed in pure copper (Image courtesy: Addireen Technologies)
ADDIREEN Product portfolio
ADDIREEN offers four distinct 3D printing systems, ranging from a smaller model to its largest system. The primary differences between these models lie in the build plate sizes and laser power options. All systems leverage the company’s proprietary green-laser technology, enabling the printing of copper, precious metals (gold, platinum, silver 925), as well as highly reflective and refractory materials.
ADDIREEN’s product portfolio (Image courtesy: Addireen Technologies)
Green laser 3D printing not only enables efficient and high-quality printing of pure copper and copper alloys but also expands the range of materials that can be printed using LPBF technology. It provides an ideal solution for highly reflective and difficult-to-melt materials, while also enabling more efficient and precise printing of conventional metal materials.
ADDIREEN has already launched China’s first green-laser additive manufacturing (AM) equipment, establishing itself as a leading provider of high-end industrial AM solutions. ADDIREEN aims to deliver cost-effective yet highly professional systems for producing end-use components from advanced materials. By combining high-resolution printing, material versatility, and industrial-grade performance, ADDIREEN is not only addressing long-standing challenges in metal AM but also accelerating its adoption in sectors such as aerospace, electronics, energy, and e-mobility. As ADDIREEN continues to expand globally, it stands at the forefront of a new generation of additive manufacturing defined by precision, efficiency, and material innovation.
