Solder-joining using metallic solder alloys is an alternative to adhesive bonding. Laser-based soldering processes are especially well suited for the joining of optical components made of fragile and brittle materials such as glasses, ceramics and optical crystals due to a localized and minimized input of thermal energy. The Solderjet Bumping technique is used to assemble a miniaturized laser resonator in order to obtain higher robustness, wider thermal conductivity performance, higher vacuum and radiation compatibility, and better heat and long term stability compared with identical glued devices. The resulting assembled compact and robust green diode-pumped solid-state laser is part of the future Raman Laser Spectrometer designed for the Exomars European Space Agency (ESA) space mission 2018.

Solder joining using metallic solder alloys is an alternative to adhesive bonding. Laser-based soldering processes are especially well suited for the joining of optical components made of fragile and brittle materials such as glasses, ceramics and optical crystals. This is due to a localized and minimized input of thermal energy. Solderjet bumping technology has been used to assemble a lens mount breadboard taking as input specifications the requirements found for the optical beam expander for the European Space Agency (ESA) EarthCare Mission. The silica lens and a titanium barrel have been designed and assembled with this technology in order to withstand the stringent mission demands; handling high mechanical and thermal loads without losing its optical performances. Finally a high-precision opto-mechanical lens mount has been assembled with a minimal localized stress (<1 MPa) showing outstanding performances in terms of wave-front error measurements and beam depolarization ratio before and after environmental tests

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