Laser spot welding in the electronics industry

In the past laser welding has often been proposed as a means to weld exotic materials, but in practice it can compete directly with resistance welding for a variety of more common mass production applications. Its advantages are: (1) There are no electrodes, hence no wear and maintenance problems; (2) There is no deformation of the parts to be welded, since no welding force is involved; (3) Parts tend to become smaller and smaller in the electronics industry and for that reason a contactless joining technique is preferable; (4) The weld is more accessible. For similar reasons the positioning of parts to be welded becomes more and more complex, and the production engineer is hardly able to find the space needed for the welding electrodes; and (5) Electrical conductance is not involved, which implies that there is less influence on the weld of oxide layers and oil films.