NUBURU and Essentium Partner

NUBURU, a company focused on high power and high brightness industrial blue lasers, and Essentium Inc., announced a partnership to develop and manufacture a blue laser-based metal AM platform. The new Essentium printer will enable manufacturers to create production-grade metal parts with high resolution and fast throughput, the companies report.

Under the multi-year, multi-million-dollar agreement, Essentium may integrate NUBURU’s blue laser technology with its High Speed Extrusion (HSE) 3D printing technology for product development in the first phase, and manufacturing in the second phase. The new AM platform is designed to deliver throughput for part quality and use in major industrial markets, including automotive, aerospace and defense.

As a part of the contract, NUBURU will also license its core 3D printing application patents, based on NUBURU’s foundational patent, "Methods and systems for welding copper using blue laser" US10,940,562B2 and JP2019562226A.

NUBURU’s blue laser is well suited for materials processing applications within AM. NUBURU’s blue laser technology enables printing with 10x the build speed and the ability to print with a very high metal density without any post processes.

"Our high power, high brightness blue laser technology, along with our 3D printing IP will help Essentium build a powerful metal 3D printer with a wide range of applications," says Mark Zediker Ph.D., co-founder, CEO, and President at NUBURU.

Essentium’s HSE 3D Printing Platforms are supported by eight patents to date, provide energy-efficient deposition, eliminating porosity and minimizing warpage during a build. The new platform will produce parts comparable to castings and forgings with minimal post-processing required.

"NUBURU is the leader in blue laser technology, and their expertise will help enable gains in speed and power within our new platform," says Elisa Teipel, Ph.D., chief development officer and co-founder of Essentium. 

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.