Patent ID: 8803029

Claim:
A welding head comprising: a housing; a laser device attached to said housing, said laser device for emitting radiation into said housing; a beam splitter located within said housing inboard from said laser device, said beam splitter operable to form a leading beam by allowing radiation with low divergence to pass through to a first optical path, and operable to form a trailing beam by deflecting radiation with high divergence to a second optical path; a reflective mirror in said second optical path, said reflective mirror adapted to reflect said trailing beam to a third optical path; and a plurality of focusing lenses, a first focusing lens disposed in said first optical path and operable to focus said leading beam, and a second focusing lens disposed in said third optical path and operable to focus said trailing beam, wherein said beam splitter is mounted to a stage that is linearly movable along an optical axis of said radiation emitted from said laser device to adjust a power ratio of said leading and trailing beams; and said reflective mirror is connected to said stage such that said reflective mirror is simultaneously movable with said stage to maintain optical alignment with said beam splitter.