When skeletal fractures are too extensive for fixation with plates and screws, autografts are the most used technique for treating this. Within the biomedical field the interest in biodegradable implants made from additive manufacturing have increased. Magnesium alloys has also gained interest because of its favorable mechanical properties.. The objective of this project is to report on new knowledge, possibilities and limitations of powder bed fusion-laser beam (PBF-LB) printed magnesium-based alloys for biomedical applications, specifically the mechanical properties of WE43. Before the practical work was carried through, a gathering of literature from scientific papers was put together to a background with information regarding Magnesium, additive manufacturing, microscopic observation methods and mechanical testing.  The practical elements were divided into 4 different categories: printing, sample preparation for observation and testing, microscopic observation, and mechanical testing. All the collected data was observed and discussed, and lastly compiled in to a result with microscopic images, stress-strain curves and data tables. It was discovered that the mechanical properties differed between the two build orientations. The specimen most appropriate for load bearing implants was the horizontal build direction. The differences between 67° and 90° scan strategy were that the 90° scan strategy with horizontal build orientation showed the lowest Young´s modulus which is favorable, whereas the 67° scan strategy showed higher tensile strength and ductility which also is favorable. Thereby no conclusion could be drawn on whether a 67° or 90° scan strategy was preferable. The conclusion was made that a horizontal build orientation had the most optimal mechanical properties, and that more research needs to be conducted on this topic before it can be used for biomedical applications.

Additive manufacturing of Nitinol is a promising field, as it can circumvent the challenges associated with its conventional production processes and unlock unique advantages. However, the accompanying surface features such as powder adhesions, spatters, ballings, or oxide discolorations are undesirable in engineering applications and therefore must be removed. Plasma electrolytic polishing (PeP) might prove to be a suitable finishing process for this purpose, but the effects of post-processing on the mechanical and functional material properties of additively manufactured Nitinol are still largely unresearched. This study seeks to address this issue. The changes on and in the part caused by PeP with processing times between 2 and 20 min are investigated using Nitinol compression springs manufactured by Laser Beam Melting. As a benchmark for the scanning electron microscope images, the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements, and the mechanical load test cycles, conventionally fabricated Nitinol springs of identical geometry with a medical grade polished surface are used. After 5 min of PeP, a glossy surface free of powder adhesion is achieved, which is increasingly levelled by further polishing. The shape memory properties of the material are retained without a shift in the transformation temperatures being detectable. The decreasing spring rate is primarily attributable to a reduction in the effective wire diameter. Consequently, PeP has proven to be an applicable and effective post-processing method for additively manufactured Nitinol.

The present dissertation reports the findings of a study of cracking behavior of a newly developed superalloy, Allvac 718Plus during high power beam welding and post-weld heat treatment. Microstructures of the base alloy, heat affected zone (HAZ) and fusion zone (FZ) of welded and post-weld heat treated (PWHT) coupons were examined by the use of standard metallographic techniques involving optical microscopy, analytical scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and analytical transmission electron microscopy. Moreover, grain boundary segregation behavior of boron atoms during pre-weld heat treatments was evaluated using secondary ion mass spectroscopic system. In the first phase of the research, 718Plus was welded using a low and high heat input CO2 laser to assess its weld cracking response. Detailed examination of the welds by analytical electron microscopic technique revealed the occurrence of cracking in the HAZ of low heat input welds, while their FZ was crack free. However, both the FZ and HAZ of high heat input welds were crack-free. Resolidified constituents were observed along the cracked grain boundaries of the lower heat input welds, which indicated that HAZ cracking in this newly developed superalloy was associated with grain boundary liquation. However, despite a more extensive liquation of grain boundaries and grain interior in the HAZ of high heat input welds, no cracking occurred. This was attributed to the combination of lower welding stresses generated during cooling, and relaxation of these stresses by thick intergranular liquid. Although HAZ cracking was prevented by welding with a high heat input laser, it resulted in a significant damage to the parent microstructure through its extensive liquation. Thus, the use of low heat input welding is desirable. However, this resulted in HAZ cracking which needs to be minimized or eliminated. Therefore, during the second phase of this research, the effects of pre-weld thermal processing on the cracking response of 718Plus were investigated. Results from the quantification of the cracking of the alloy showed that HAZ cracking may be significantly reduced or eliminated through an adequate selection of pre-weld thermal cycle. In the third stage of this research, crack-free welds of 718Plus were post-weld heat treated using standard thermal schedules. A significant solid state cracking of the alloy occurred during the PWHT. The cracking was attributed to the presence of embrittling phases on HAZ grain boundaries, coupled with aging contraction stresses that are generated by a considerable precipitation of gamma prime phase during aging.

The present dissertation reports the findings of a study of cracking behavior of a newly developed superalloy, Allvac 718Plus during high power beam welding and post-weld heat treatment. Microstructures of the base alloy, heat affected zone (HAZ) and fusion zone (FZ) of welded and post-weld heat treated (PWHT) coupons were examined by the use of standard metallographic techniques involving optical microscopy, analytical scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and analytical transmission electron microscopy. Moreover, grain boundary segregation behavior of boron atoms during pre-weld heat treatments was evaluated using secondary ion mass spectroscopic system. In the first phase of the research, 718Plus was welded using a low and high heat input CO2 laser to assess its weld cracking response. Detailed examination of the welds by analytical electron microscopic technique revealed the occurrence of cracking in the HAZ of low heat input welds, while their FZ was crack free. However, both the FZ and HAZ of high heat input welds were crack-free. Resolidified constituents were observed along the cracked grain boundaries of the lower heat input welds, which indicated that HAZ cracking in this newly developed superalloy was associated with grain boundary liquation. However, despite a more extensive liquation of grain boundaries and grain interior in the HAZ of high heat input welds, no cracking occurred. This was attributed to the combination of lower welding stresses generated during cooling, and relaxation of these stresses by thick intergranular liquid. Although HAZ cracking was prevented by welding with a high heat input laser, it resulted in a significant damage to the parent microstructure through its extensive liquation. Thus, the use of low heat input welding is desirable. However, this resulted in HAZ cracking which needs to be minimized or eliminated. Therefore, during the second phase of this research, the effects of pre-weld thermal processing on the cracking response of 718Plus were investigated. Results from the quantification of the cracking of the alloy showed that HAZ cracking may be significantly reduced or eliminated through an adequate selection of pre-weld thermal cycle. In the third stage of this research, crack-free welds of 718Plus were post-weld heat treated using standard thermal schedules. A significant solid state cracking of the alloy occurred during the PWHT. The cracking was attributed to the presence of embrittling phases on HAZ grain boundaries, coupled with aging contraction stresses that are generated by a considerable precipitation of gamma prime phase during aging.

The motivation of this thesis is to propose a robust control technique for a laser beam system with target estimation. The laser beam is meant to track and fall on a particular portion of the target until the operation is accomplished. There are many applications of such a system. For example, laser range finder uses laser beam to determine the distance of the target from the source. Recently, unmanned aerial drones have been developed that run on laser power. Drone batteries can be recharged with power sup-ply from laser source on the ground. Laser is also used in high energy laser weapon for defence applications. However, laser beams travelling long distances deviate from the desired location on the target due to continually changing atmospheric parameters (jitter effect) such as pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed. This deviation error is controlled precisely using a lightweight fast steering mirror (FSM) for fine correction. Furthermore, for a moving target, minimizing the deviation of the beam is not sufficient. Hence, in coarse correction, the target has to be tracked by determining its position and assigning the corresponding azimuth and elevation angles to the laser sources. Once these firing angles are settled within an accuracy of +3 mrad, the effort for minimizing the beam deviation (fine correction) takes place to improve the accu-racy to +10 rad. The beam deviation due to jitter effect is measured by a narrow field of view (NFOV) camera at a high frame rate (1000 frames per second), which takes one frame to com-pute this error information. As a result, controller receives error information witha delay from NFOV. This data cannot be modelled for prediction and hence, a few promising data driven techniques have been implemented for one step ahead prediction of the beam deviation. The predictions are performed over a set of sliding window data online after rejecting the outliers through least square approximated straight line. In time domain, methods like auto-regressive least square, polynomial extrapolation (zeroth, first and second order), Chebyshev polynomial extrapolation, spline curve extrapolation are implemented. Further, a convex combination of zeroth order hold and spline extrapolation is implemented. In frequency domain, Fourier series-Fourier transform and L-point Discrete Fourier Transform stretching are implemented where the frequency component of the signal are analysed properly and propagated for one step ahead prediction. After one step ahead prediction, three nominal controllers (PID, DI and DLQR) are designed such that the output of FSM tracks the predicted beam deviation and the performances of these controllers are compared. Since the FSM is excited by high frequency signals, its performance degrades, which leads to parameter degradation in the mathematical model. Hence, three adaptive controllers have been implemented, namely, model reference adaptive control (MRAC), model reference adaptive sliding mode control (MRASMC) and model following neuro-adaptive control (MFNAC). The parameters of the FSM model are degraded up to 20% and the model is augmented with cross coupling terms because the same mirror is used for horizontal and vertical beam deviation. With this condition, the tracking performance and control rate energy consumption of the implemented adaptive controllers are analysed to choose the best among them. For a moving target, in coarse correction, two tracking radars are placed to measure the position of the target. However, this information is assumed to be noisy, for which an extended Kalman filter is implemented. Once the position of the target is known, the desired firing angles of the laser sources are determined. Given the laser source steering mathematical model, a controller is designed such that it tracks the desired firing angle. Once the residual error of the coarse correction settles inside 3 mrad, fine correction takes part to reduce the residual error to 10 rad. The residual error magnitude of the proposed mechanization was analysed for a moving target by perturbing the FSM model by 20% and zeroth order hold predictor with different combinations of angle tolerance and frame tolerance.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le domaine de la localisation de défauts de type «soft» dans les Circuits Intégrés (CI) analogiques et mixtes à l’aide des techniques dynamiques de stimulation laser en faible perturbation. Les résultats obtenus à l’aide de ces techniques sont très complexes à analyser dans le cas des CI analogiques et mixtes. Ce travail porte ainsi particulièrement sur le développement d’une méthodologie facilitant l’analyse des cartographies laser. Cette méthodologie est basée sur la comparaison de résultats de simulations électriques de l’interaction faisceau laser-CI avec des résultats expérimentaux (cartographies laser). L’influence des phénomènes thermique et photoélectrique sur les CI (niveau transistor) a été modélisée et simulée. La méthodologie a été validée tout d’abord sur des structures de tests simples avant d’être utilisée sur des CI complexes que l’on trouve dans le commerce. / This thesis deals with Soft failure localization in the analog and mixed mode Integrated Circuits (ICs) by means of Dynamic Laser Stimulation techniques (DLS). The results obtained using these techniques are very complex to analyze in the case of analog and mixed ICs. In this work we develop a methodology which facilitates the analysis of the laser mapping. This methodology consists on combining the experimental results (laser mapping) with the electrical simulations of laser stimulation impact on the device. The influence of photoelectric and thermal phenomena on the IC (transistor level) has been modeled and simulated. The methodology has been validated primarily on test structures before being used on complex Freescale ICs existing in commerce.

The CdTe family members (in particular CdZnTe) remain the substrate of choice for epitaxial growth of HgCdTe for use in high performance infrared (IR) detectors and focal plane arrays. This is the case despite advances in the use of alternate substrate technologies such as buffered GaAs and GaAs on Si; these technologies, to date, have not reproducibly demonstrated device performance comparable to the arrays made in HgCdTe grown on CdZnTe and CdTe. The quality of CdTe family materials has improved significantly over the past several years and so the quality and reproducibility of IR detectors has improved along with them. It is clear, however, that CdTe family substrates still have a significant impact on the performance of HgCdTe devices and that further research is required to reduce the effects of substrate on these devices. Unlike silicon or gallium arsenide, it is very difficult to grow the large area single crystals of CdZnTe due to thermodynamic limitations. It has the lowest thermal conductivity among all semiconductors that makes it difficult to obtain planar solid-liquid interface, which is desirable for the growth of large area single crystals of CdZnTe. Due to its high ionicity and weak bonding, defects are easily incorporated during the growth. Also, it is well established that both the structural defects and impurity content of Hg1-xCdxTe epitaxial layers are strongly influenced by the quality of the substrates used in the epitaxial growth process. A substrate of poor structural quality will result in a poor substrate/layer interface from which defects will propagate into the epilayer. It is known that our focal plane arrays (FPAs) are backside illuminated, with the device connected to underlying silicon multiplexer, using a matrix of indium bumps. Thus the substrate should have high IR transmission to pass the radiation on to the detector for collection. High IR transmission requires chemically and electrically homogeneous crystals free from extraneous second phase particles. This objective is one of the most difficult thermodynamic and technological problems in the growth of CdTe and related alloys. The bulk CdZnTe crystals grown from melt suffer from the inherent disadvantage of accommodating tellurium precipitates because of high growth temperature and phase diagram limitations. These tellurium (Te) precipitates condense as cadmium vacancies and Te interstitials during the cooling process, which contribute to intrinsic point defects. Although extensive efforts have been made in the area of purification of the CdZnTe crystals by using 6N pure starting materials, still the high temperature melt growth leads to impurity pickup during the crystal growth process. This deviation in the stoichiometry, especially due to free carriers, impurities and second phase tellurium precipitates, play the major role in reducing the infrared transmission through the CdZnTe substrate material. Also they affect the device performance when used for detector applications. In this context a thorough investigation of the non-stoichiometry of the CdZnTe material is mandatory to improve the material quality. It is my endeavor in this respect to present in this thesis “optical and structural investigations of defects in CdZnTe (Zn~4%) crystals”. The present thesis has been organized into six chapters. Chapter 1: It presents an up to date comprehensive review of the defects in CdTe binary and CdZnTe ternary compound semiconductors. It includes an introduction to the ternary II-VI cadmium zinc telluride with potential device applications. Issues related to CdTe based substrates for infrared (IR) applications have been discussed. Growth as well as several material aspects like crystal structure, band structure, mechanical, thermal, optical and dielectric properties have been discussed in details. The chapter ends with the motivation and scope for the present thesis. Chapter 2 : Te precipitates were identified and characterized in CdZnTe (Zn ~ 4%) crystals using various physical characterization techniques and the results are presented in Chapter 2. X-ray diffraction rocking curve measurements were carried out on a series of samples to assess the overall crystalline quality of the as grown CdZnTe crystals, in conjunction with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) absorption spectroscopy measurements to identify the presence of Te precipitates. Further, the CdZnTe samples having Te precipitates were systematically characterized using micro-Raman imaging technique. CdZnTe wafers grown in three and six zone furnaces using quartz and/or pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN) crucibles have been subjected to micro-Raman imaging to quantify and understand the nature of Te precipitates. It is well known that for the normal phase of Te precipitates, the Raman modes appear centered around 121 (A1), 141(E) /TO (CdTe) cm -1and a weak mode around 92 (E) cm -1 in CdZnTe indicating the presence of trigonal lattice of Te. Using the micro-Raman maps and taking the spatial distribution of the area ratio of 121 to 141 cm-1 Raman modes, the size and distribution of Te precipitates were estimated. A substantial reduction in Te precipitate size and an improvement in the IR transmission in the 2.2 – 5 µm IR window was observed in the CdZnTe crystals subjected to post growth annealing under Cd+Zn vapors at 650 oC for 6 hrs. Also it is shown that the samples grown in pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN) crucibles have shown an overall improvement in the crystalline quality and reduction in the Te precipitate size as compared to the samples grown in quartz crucibles. The possible reasons for these observations have been discussed in chapter 2. The presence of Te precipitates under high pressure phase was detected by the blueshift of the Raman bands that appear at 121 (A1) cm-1for a normal Te phase, indicating that these micro-Raman maps are basically the distribution of Te precipitates in different phases. NIR microscopy imaging has been carried out to further substantiate the presence of Te precipitates under high pressure phase and that of larger Te precipitates. The significance of micro-Raman imaging lies in quantifying and demonstrating the high pressure phase of Te precipitates in CdZnTe crystals in a non-destructive way. Also it is shown that the presence of Te precipitates lead to loss of useful signal in the 2.2 – 6 µm wavelength regions and hence are “deleterious” for substrate applications of CdZnTe crystals required for the growth and fabrication of HgCdTe detectors. Chapter 3: The effects of annealing and hydrogenation on the low temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra of CdZnTe (Zn ~ 4%) crystals are reported in this chapter. It is shown that annealing at 600 oC for 12 hrs under Cd vapors has resulted in the disappearance of both C-A and DAP recombination features (attributed to singly ionized cadmium vacancy acceptors) observed in the 1.5 – 1.6 eV band edge region in the low temperature PL spectra of CdZnTe, confirming the origination of these bands from Cd vacancy defects. The presence of copper impurity has been identified by the appearance of the 1.616 (AoX) eV energy peak attributed to exciton bound to the neutral copper acceptor and the 1.469 eV band attributed to copper acceptor in the donor acceptor pair (DAP) recombinations. It is shown that, only annealing under Cd+Zn vapors at 650 oC for 6 hrs has resulted in the passivation of the 1.469 eV band and the mechanism has been explained invoking the Hume-Rothery rule. Passivation of the 1.469 eV band is significant, since CdZnTe substrate copper contamination was found to degrade HgCdTe epitaxial layer and hence the performance of HgCdTe infrared (IR) detectors. Also it shown that vacuum annealing has resulted in the introduction of a new defect band around 0.85 eV in the low temperature PL spectra of CdZnTe possibly due to the loss of Cd and/or Zn. Further, the effects of hydrogenation in passivating the defect bands observed in the low temperature PL spectra of the control CdZnTe crystals are discussed. Using micro-Raman imaging technique, it is shown that hydrogenation has resulted in the reduction in size and restoration of normal phase for Te precipitates, which otherwise were present under high pressure phase in CdZnTe crystals. It is shown that the net effect of hydrogenation is to improve the quality of CdZnTe crystals at low temperature (50 oC) as compared to the high Cd+Zn annealing temperature (650 oC) whose effect is only to reduce the size of Te precipitates. To further substantiate this an analysis of the temperature dependent resonance micro-Raman spectra recorded with 633 and 488 nm lasers has been made and it is shown that appearance of the multiple orders (up to 4 orders) of the CdTe like LO phonon modes and emergence of the ZnTe like LO phonon mode are clear indications of the improved quality of the hydrogenated CdZnTe crystals. Chapter 4: Manifestation of Fe2+and Fe3+charge states of Fe in undoped CdZnTe (Zn ~ 4 %) crystals grown in quartz crucibles by asymmetrical Bridgemann method and their respective optical and magnetic behaviors have been discussed in this chapter. Fe2+being optically active shows absorption around 2295 cm-1in the low temperature (T = 3 K) FTIR spectra, while Fe3+being magnetically active exhibits coexistence of para and ferromagnetic phases, as identified by low temperature electron spin resonance and supported independently by low temperature SQUID and AC susceptibility measurements. In the paramagnetic phase (TC ~ 4.8 K) the inverse of ac susceptibility follows the Curie-Weiss law. In the ferromagnetic phase (TC ~ 4.8 K) the thermal evolution of magnetization follows the well known Bloch’s T3/2 law. This is further supported by the appearance of hysteresis in the SQUID measurements at 2K below TC. Small coercive field of 10 Oe as estimated in the hysteresis suggests that the magnetic anisotropy is very small in these systems. Chapter 5: In this chapter, details of the indigenously developed laser beam induced current (LBIC) instrumentation have been presented. These include instrumental arrangement of the micro-mechanical system for raster scanning of defects in semicoductors and fabrication details of continuous flow liquid helium cryostat for low temperature LBIC measurements. Preliminary LBIC data recorded using this system have been shown to demonstrate the operability of the system. Chapter 6: This chapter includes a brief write-up summarizing the results and draws the attention for the possible future work. Appendix A: Here C++ programs for LBIC measurements are presented. Appendix B: Here the CAD diagrams for the full cross sectional view of the liquid helium cryostat consisting of “assembly liquid helium cryostat” and “part liquid helium cryostat” are attached.

La génération d'harmoniques d'ordre élevé en milieu gazeux est un phénomène habituellement décrit par un modèle à trois étapes : sous l'effet d'un champ laser intense, un atome (ou une molécule) est ionisé par effet tunnel. L'électron éjecté est accéléré dans le champ laser, puis il se recombine sur son ion parent en émettant un photon XUV. Ce rayonnement XUV, émis sous la forme d'impulsions attosecondes (1 as = 10-18 s), est un outil idéal pour sonder la structure électronique des atomes ou des molécules, avec une résolution temporelle de l'ordre de l'attoseconde. Néanmoins, l'intensité de ce rayonnement n'est en général pas suffisante pour induire des effets non-linéaires (transitions à deux photons).Au cours des travaux réalisés pendant cette thèse, nous avons développé une source harmonique capable de produire un rayonnement XUV intense qui doit permettre d'accéder à la physique non-linéaire dans cette gamme de longueur d'onde. Pour parvenir à ces résultats, un travail important sur les impulsions infrarouges génératrices a été nécessaire, aussi bien dans le domaine spatial que dans le domaine temporel. Une technique de mise en forme spatiale de faisceaux laser intenses a donc été développée, ainsi qu'une technique de post compression adaptée aux impulsions laser intenses. Ce travail de thèse se divise donc en trois étapes : - Le développement de la source harmonique haute énergie et des diagnostics associés. Cette source est basée sur l'utilisation d'une chaîne laser Titane-Saphir qui délivre des impulsions de 150 mJ pour des durées de 40 fs à une cadence de 10 Hz. De bonnes conditions d'optimisation ont été obtenues, donnant lieu à des impulsions XUV dont l'énergie est de l'ordre du µJ lors de la génération dans l'argon.- Le développement d'une technique de mise en forme spatiale adaptée aux faisceaux laser intenses et à la génération d'harmoniques. Le dispositif est basé sur une optique en réflexion et sur les interférences à deux faisceaux. Il permet de produire, dans la région focale, des faisceaux dont le profil d'intensité est radialement constant (faisceaux flat top) et ainsi d'apporter un contrôle supplémentaire sur la génération d'harmoniques d'ordre élevé.- Le développement d'une technique de post compression en propagation guidée basée sur l'élargissement spectral induit par ionisation. Cette technique est adaptée pour des impulsions intenses (3.5 TW) et permet de produire des impulsions de puissance crête supérieure au Térawatt dans le domaine sub-10 fs. Cette technique fournit donc une source unique pour la génération d'harmoniques d'ordre élevé.Ces deux approches ont été testées et validées pour la génération d'harmoniques d'ordre élevé, et les résultats obtenus ouvrent d'intéressantes perspectives telles que la génération d'impulsions attosecondes isolées de haute énergie (> 100 nJ). / The generation of high order harmonics in a gaseous medium is a phenomenon conveniently described by a three steps model : subject to a strong laser field irradiation, an atom (or molecule) can undergo a tunneling ionization. The ejected electron is accelerated in the laser field and recombine on its parent ion leading to the emission of an XUV photon. The XUV radiation can be emitted as attosecond pulses (1 as = 10-18 s), and it is then an ideal tool to probe the electronic structure of atoms or molecules which require the highest time resolution. However, the intensity of this radiation is usually not sufficient to induce non-linear processes (two-photon transitions).In the frame of this work, we have developed a harmonic source capable of producing an intense XUV radiation to access non-linear physics in this wavelength domain.To achieve these results, significant work on the infrared generating pulses was necessary, both in the spatial and temporal domain. We have developed a technique for spatial shaping of intense laser beams, and a post compression technique fitted to high energy pulses.This thesis is therefore divided into three parts:- The development of an high energy harmonic source and related diagnostics. We use a Ti: sapphire laser system for this source which delivers 40-fs pulses up to an energy of 150 mJ at 10 Hz repetition rate. Good optimization conditions were obtained, leading to XUV pulse energies of the order of μJ in the case of generation in argon.- The development of a spatial shaping technique adapted to intense laser beams and to harmonic generation. The device is based on reflection optics and the interferences of two beams. It can produce, in the focal region, beams with a radially constant intensity over a large volume (flat top beams) and thus provide additional control of the harmonics generating process.- The development of a post compression technique in guided geometry based on the ionization induced spectral broadening. This technique is suitable for intense pulses (3.5 TW) and produces pulses above the terawatt level in the 10-fs range. This technique therefore provides a unique source for harmonic generation.These two approaches have been tested and validated for high order harmonics generation, and the results open interesting perspectives such as the generation of isolated attosecond pulses of high energy (> 100 nJ).

Laser beam welding has been widely applied in different industrial sectors due to its unique advantages. However, there are still challenges, such as beam positioning in T-joint welding, and gap bridging in butt joint welding,especially in the case of varying gap width along a joint. It is expected that enabling more advanced control to a welding system, and obtaining more in-depth process knowledge could help to solve these issues. The aim of this work is to address such welding issues by a laser beam shaping technology using a novel deformable mirror together with computer vision methods and also to increase knowledge about the benefits and limitations with this approach. Beam shaping in this work was realized by a novel deformable mirror system integrated into an industrial processing optics. Together with a wave front sensor, a controlled adaptive beam shaping system was formed with a response time of 10 ms. The processes were monitored by a coaxial camera with selected filters and passive or active illumination. Conduction mode autogenous bead-on-plate welding and butt joint welding experiments have been used to understand the effect of beam shaping on the melt pool geometry. Circular Gaussian, and elliptical Gaussian shapes elongated transverse to and along the welding direction were studied. In-process melt pool images and cross section micrographs of the weld seams/beads were analyzed. The results showed that the melt pool geometry can be significantly modified by beam shaping using the deformable mirror. T-joint welding with different beam offset deviations relative to the center of the joint line was conducted to study the potential of using machine learning to track the process state. The results showed that machine learning can reach sufficient detection and estimation performance, which could also be used for on-line control. In addition, in-process and multidimensional data were accurately acquired using computer vision methods. These data reveal weaknesses of current thermo-fluid simulation model, which in turn can help to better understand and control laser beam welding. The obtained results in this work shows a huge potential in using the proposed methods to solve relevant challenges in laser beam welding. / Lasersvetsning används i stor utsträckning i olika industrisektorer på grund av dess unika fördelar. Det finns emellertid fortfarande utmaningar, såsom rätt positionering av laserstrålen vid genomträngningssvetsning av T-fogar och hantering av varierande spaltbredd längs fogen vid svetsning av stumfogar. Sådana problem förväntas kunna lösas med avancerade metoder för automatisering, metoder som också förväntas ge fördjupade kunskaper om processen. Syftet med detta arbete är att ta itu med dessa problem med hjälp av en teknik för lasereffektens fördelning på arbetsstycket, s.k. beam shaping. Det sker med hjälp av en ny typ av i realtid deformerbar spegel tillsammans med bildbehandling av kamerabilder från processen. För- och nackdelar med detta tillvägagångssätt undersöks.Beam shaping åstadkoms med hjälp av ny typ av deformerbart spegelsystem som integreras i en industriell processoptik. Tillsammans med en vågfrontsensor bildas ett adaptivt system för beam shaping med en svarstid på 10 ms. Processen övervakas av en kamera linjerad koaxialt med laserstrålen. För att kunna ta bilder av svetspunkten belyses den med ljus av lämplig våglängd, och kameran är försedd med ett motsvarande optiskt filter. Försök har utförts med svetsning utan tillsatsmaterial, direkt på plåtar, svetsning utan s.k. nyckelhål, för att förstå effekten av beam shaping på svetssmältans geometri. Gauss fördelade cirkulära och elliptiska former, långsträckta både tvärs och längs svetsriktningen har studerats. Bilder från svetssmältan har analyserats och även mikrostrukturen i tvärsnitt från de svetsade plåtarna. Resultaten visar att svetssmältans geometri kan modifieras signifikant genom beam shaping med hjälp av det deformerbara spegelsystemet. Genomträngningssvetsning av T-fogar med avvikelser relativt foglinjens centrum genomfördes för att studera potentialen i att använda maskininlärning för att fånga processens tillstånd. Resultaten visade att maskininlärning kan nå tillräcklig prestanda för detektering och skattning av denna avvikelse. Något som också kan användas för återkopplad styrning. Flerdimensionell processdata har samlats i realtid och analyserats med hjälp av bildbehandlingsmetoder.  Dessa data avslöjar brister i nuvarande simuleringsmodeller,vilket i sin tur hjälper till med att bättre förstå och styra lasersvetsning.Resultaten från detta arbete uppvisar en god potential i att använda de föreslagna metoderna för att lösa relevanta utmaningar inom lasersvetsning. / <p>Till licentiatuppsats hör 2 inskickade artiklar, som visas inte nu.</p>

The description and characteristic of the material cutting process technology by means of laser and plasma beams. The safety of both technologies. Technical-economic comparison of both material cutting methods. The evaluation of the cutting quality according to ČSN EN ISO 9013 Standard.