Researchers from Skoltech, part of the VEB.RF group, and collaborating institutions in Russia and India have turned their attention to one of additive manufacturing’s most closely watched material frontiers: copper alloys. Their work shows that with carefully tuned process parameters, laser powder bed fusion can produce aluminum bronze components that match, and in certain cases exceed, the performance of parts made through conventional manufacturing methods.
The findings, published in Materials Characterization, open a credible route to printing heat exchangers, power electronics enclosures, and cooling components with complex geometries, parts where both thermal performance and structural integrity are non-negotiable.
Why Copper Alloys Have Been Difficult to Print
Aluminum bronze (Cu-9.5Al-1Fe) sits in an interesting middle ground: it conducts heat better than steel or titanium and is more amenable to additive processing than pure copper, yet it has remained difficult to print reliably. The root of the problem lies in the material’s physics. Its high reflectivity deflects laser energy, while its capacity to dissipate heat rapidly makes consistent melting hard to achieve.
By systematically varying laser power between 90 and 150 W and scanning speed between 100 and 600 mm/s, the team mapped energy density across a broad range, from 125 to 938 J/mm³. Two distinct defect regimes emerged: at lower energy inputs, insufficient melting produced lack-of-fusion porosity, while excessive energy density induced keyhole instability, where melt pool collapse traps gas beneath the surface. Regardless of the parameter set applied, total porosity consistently settled near 5%.
Strength Without Sacrificing Conductivity
Despite that residual porosity, the printed samples delivered mechanical results that challenged conventional expectations. Tensile strength reached 748 MPa and elongation hit 16.2%, figures that place the material in the same performance bracket as nickel-aluminum bronze, a grade typically reserved for demanding industrial applications and not commonly associated with additive processes.
“We were able to show that even using equipment with limited laser power, it is possible to achieve mechanical properties close to those of industrial nickel-aluminum bronzes. The key factor turned out to be not just increasing the energy input, but understanding the mechanisms governing the transition between different types of defects. This allows us to predict material properties at the stage of selecting printing parameters,” shared Associate Professor Stanislav Evlashin from the Materials Center, a co-author of the study.
Phase composition proved equally revealing. The extreme cooling rates inherent to laser melting, reaching up to 10⁷ K/s, drove crystallization far from equilibrium, giving rise to phases absent in conventionally processed aluminum bronze: Al₂Cu interlayers and Cu₃Fe nanoparticles. Crucially, higher energy density was found to suppress the phase fraction most responsible for hardness and strength, though this trade-off carried implications for electrical and thermal conductivity.
“Using a set of approaches — from microstructural analysis using various microscopy techniques to measurements of physical and mechanical characteristics — we established a direct correlation between dislocation density, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity. It turns out that as energy input increases, dislocation density decreases and a redistribution of aluminum occurs within the structure. This leads to higher thermal conductivity without any noticeable degradation in mechanical properties. Porosity, meanwhile, has a minor effect,” explained Anastasia Filippova, the first author of the paper and a PhD student in the Mathematics and Mechanics program at Skoltech.
Thermal conductivity was measured across an exceptionally wide temperature window, 5 to 575 K, using two independent methods: PPMS and laser flash analysis. Samples processed at high energy density reached 47 W/(m·K) at room temperature, a figure on par with cast material, yet achieved alongside substantially greater strength.
Copper Alloys Are the Next Battleground in Industrial AM
The additive manufacturing industry has long been able to print titanium, stainless steel, and nickel superalloys with confidence, but high-conductivity materials like copper have remained stubbornly difficult to qualify for production use. Skoltech’s work on aluminum bronze addresses that gap head-on, contributing process-level knowledge that moves the material from experimental curiosity to a credible candidate for functional components.
Industry players are converging on this same challenge from multiple angles. At TCT Asia 2025, Eplus3D demonstrated meter-scale copper alloy parts produced with red-laser technology, directly targeting the long-standing barriers of high reflectivity and thermal conductivity that have historically made copper difficult to process with laser-based systems.
On the materials supply side, HP and GKN Powder Metallurgy are jointly expanding copper-based applications for thermal management and electrification components, with projections of high efficiency gains for end-users over the next five years.
The pressure to qualify more materials for industrial-grade printing is structural, not incidental. Advances in both polymers and metal alloys are expanding additive manufacturing’s reach across healthcare, aerospace, and energy sectors where material performance is non-negotiable. Skoltech’s findings feed directly into that trajectory: a replicable framework for aluminum bronze parts that combine thermal performance with mechanical strength, a combination that has historically required a trade-off.
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Featured image shows Insstek MX-1000. Photo via Skoltech.
