Investigation of different laser cutting strategies for sizing of Li-ion battery electrodes

Lithium-ion batteries are currently considered to be the most promising advanced battery technology for electric vehicles that require high energy capacity. A lot of research and development activities have been focused on their development to achieve efficient mass production capabilities and to successfully commercialize the technology. This paper discusses the laser cutting process for coated anode/cathode and uncoated copper/aluminum tabs for both cylindrical and prismatic Li-ion cell designs. A number of different cutting strategies have been investigated using IR (fiber/disc) and UV laser sources in pulsed/cw configurations. An in-depth development study has been performed to understand the effect of different processing parameters on the maximum cutting speed, cut edge quality and overall energy efficiency of the process. Results show that excellent cut quality can be achieved using optimal processing parameters with cutting speeds ranging from several m/min up to 300 m/min depending on the processing requirements and the corresponding cutting approach.