Advancing laser powder bed fusion of metals via tailored laser beam shaping: a critical review

Laser beam shaping is increasingly explored to enhance Laser Powder Bed Fusion of Metals (PBF-LB/M) by controlling the spatial energy distribution within the laser spot. While conventional Gaussian beams remain widely used in commercial systems, their concentrated energy input can promote steep thermal gradients and localized overheating, which may restrict process stability, productivity, and part quality. This review critically synthesizes recent progress in laser beam shaping for PBF-LB/M, with emphasis on work from 2020 to early 2026. Compared with earlier reviews that mainly focused on optical implementation or broader laser–material processing concepts, this review integrates beam-shape generation with melt-pool dynamics, defect formation, surface quality, microstructural evolution, mechanical response, productivity, and emerging shape-aware process descriptors. The discussion shows how profiles such as core–ring, ring-dominant, top-hat, and elliptical beams can broaden stable process windows, suppress spatter and keyhole porosity, and promote more uniform thermal histories, with implications for surface quality, mechanical isotropy, and build efficiency. Modeling and simulation studies are also summarized to clarify the coupled heat-fluid–solid interactions controlling melt-pool behavior, thermal gradients, and solidification kinetics. Furthermore, major implementation challenges such as optical integration, energy-delivery stability, process reproducibility, and the lack of standardized beam descriptors are summarized. The review concludes by outlining emerging research directions aimed at enabling practical, reliable, and industrial-scale adoption of beam-shaping technologies in additive manufacturing.

Content

Subjects

Additive manufacturing

Laser beam shaping

Laser powder bed fusion

Melt-pool stability

Microstructure

PBF-LB/M

Porosity

Productivity

DDC Class

620.11: Engineering Materials

621: Applied Physics

Funding References

Funding(s)

RMIT European Doctoral Innovators Programme

Files

Lizenz

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Publication version

publishedVersion

Download

Name

1-s2.0-S0264127526011214-main.pdf

Type

Main Article

Size

29.07 MB

Format

Adobe PDF