Conference visit to Japan by doctoral students from the Materials and Production Engineering Doctoral Centre - LAMP2025

Frederik Maiwald, a doctoral student under Professor Stefan Hierl at OTH Regensburg, and Andreas Schkutow, a doctoral student under Professor Thomas Frick at Nuremberg Institute of Technology, are conducting research in the field of laser-based manufacturing technology. The international specialist congress Laser Advanced Materials Processing (LAMP2025) in Ise City, Japan, offered them an excellent opportunity to share their research results with experts from all over the world and to discuss the latest developments in the field of laser technology.

Frederik Maiwald presented his research work on process monitoring during the laser welding of plastics. At the Technology Campus in Parsberg-Lupburg, he uses optical coherence tomography (OCT) - a light-based tomography method - to analyse the melting and resolidification of the plastic during the welding process in real time. With the help of OCT measurement technology, the melt within the components can be monitored, which allows conclusions to be drawn about the geometry and morphology of the weld seam and thus its strength.

Andreas Schkutow is researching particularly efficient and fast processes for laser-based surface structuring of metals at the Institute for Chemistry, Materials and Product Development at Nuremberg Institute of Technology Georg Simon Ohm. In his lecture, he presented the evaluation of high-speed camera images of the ablation process using rapidly modulated laser radiation. These images can be used to analyse the interactions between the molten pool and the metal vapour in the irradiated area and to further optimise the process parameters.

PhD students Andreas Schkutow and Frederik Maiwald at the Laser Advanced Materials Processing Conference in Ise-City. Photo: Carola Forster