Additive Manufacturing with Overlapping Light Beams
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsWei-Sheng Lei, Kashif Maqsood, David Masayuki Ishikawa
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An additive manufacturing apparatus includes a platform, a dispenser configured to deliver a plurality of successive layers of feed material onto the platform, a light source assembly to generate a first light beam and a second light beam, a beam combiner configured to combine the first light beam and the second light beam into a common light beam, and a mirror scanner configured to direct the common light beam towards the platform to deliver energy along a scan path on an outermost layer of feed material.
Claims20
An additive manufacturing apparatus comprising:
- a platform;
- a dispenser configured to deliver a plurality of successive layers of feed material onto the platform;
- a light source assembly to generate a first light beam and a second light beam;
- a beam combiner configured to combine the first light beam and the second light beam into a common light beam;
- and
- a mirror scanner configured to direct the common light beam towards the platform to deliver energy along a scan path on an outermost layer of feed material.
An additive manufacturing method comprising:
- directing a first light beam and a second light beam into a beam combiner to form a common light beam;
- directing the common light beam towards a mirror scanner;
- and
- scanning the common light beam along a scan path across a top layer of a feed material on a platform with the mirror scanner.
An additive manufacturing apparatus comprising:
- a platform;
- a dispenser configured to deliver a plurality of successive layers of material onto the platform;
- a light source assembly configured to generate a first light beam and a second light beam;
- a first mirror scanner configured to direct the first light beam to impinge an outermost layer of feed material on the platform;
- a second mirror scanner configured to direct the second light beam to impinge the outermost layer of feed material;
- and
- a controller configured to cause the first mirror scanner to direct the first light beam along a scan path on the outermost layer of feed material and cause the second mirror scanner to simultaneously direct the second light beam along the scan path such that beam spots of the first light beam and the second light beam on the outermost layer of feed material overlap as the first light beam and the second light beam traverse the scan path.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.