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SEURAT INSIGHTS · VOLUME II · WITH AMPOWER

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From Spot to Area Printing®

How a single laser pulse melts a whole tile of metal powder

Published August 2023 · 13 pages

Laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) melts metal one laser spot at a time, and adding lasers to speed it up adds cost and complexity. Seurat Insights Vol. II explains why that approach has limits and how Area Printing works instead: a pulsed laser, patterned by a blue-light projector, melts a whole tile of powder with each pulse. It covers the process, its parameters and what it means for build rate and detail.​

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Editor's note: Published August 2023. Figures and forecasts reflect that date. For current information, see Area Printing.

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With analysis from the experts at AMPOWER

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Includes analysis by AMPOWER, a strategy consultancy for industrial additive manufacturing (AM) founded in 2017 and based in Hamburg, Germany. AMPOWER's technology comparison and cost analysis appear throughout, along with an assessment from Managing Partner Matthias Schmidt-Lehr.

Matthias Schmidt-Lehr

Managing Partner of AMPOWER

Key Findings

  • Processing makes up about 70% of the cost of a metal AM part, and processing means machine time: the printer's hourly cost while it builds the part. Material and labor make up the other 30%, so cost per part falls mainly when machines print faster or cost less per hour.

  • More lasers and bigger build platforms have physical and economic limits. Each laser needs its own scanner and calibration, and gas flow gets harder to control as the powder bed grows.

  • Area Printing shapes a pulsed IR laser into a square field, then patterns it with blue light through an optically addressable light valve, so each pulse melts a full tile.

  • Each tile is defined by more than 2.3 million pixels, and laser power can be set pixel by pixel. That opens options such as support-free builds and graded material properties.

  • Short, high-power pulses melt the powder with almost no spatter or soot, which affects density in conventional L-PBF.

  • Area Printing aims to decouple build rate from feature size, so parts can be printed in volume with fine detail and less post-processing.

“Area Printing is a true disruption with a radically new approach to an established AM technology. This technical innovation will lead to massively increased application opportunities due to the strong productivity increase.”

Matthias Schmidt-Lehr, Managing Partner, AMPOWER

By the Numbers

  • Laser pulse energy: 10–60 J per tile

  • Tile size: 5–10 mm

  • Pixels per tile: more than 2.3 million, for a pixel size of 6–10 µm

  • Field frequency: 20–60 tiles per second

  • Conventional L-PBF focuses 200–1,000 W on a single 80–100 µm spot

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