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The most evident trend in electronics production is towards miniaturization. Regarding the materials involved, another trend can be observed: intelligent combinations of different materials. One example is the combination of copper and aluminium. Copper is the material of choice for electronic packaging applications due to its superior electrical and thermal conductivity. On the other hand, aluminium offers technical and economical advantages with respect to cost and component weight -- still providing thermal and electrical properties acceptable for numerous applications. Especially for high volume products, the best solution often seems to be a combination of both materials. This fact raises the question of joining copper and aluminium. With respect to miniaturization laser micro welding is a very promising joining technique. Unfortunately, the metallurgical incompatibility of copper and aluminium easily results in the formation of brittle intermetallic phases and segregations during laser welding, thus generating an unacceptable quality of the joints. This paper presents investigations on enhancing the quality during laser micro welding of copper and aluminium for applications in electronics production. In order to eliminate the formation of brittle intermetallic phases, the addition of a filter material in form of a foil has been investigated. It can be shown that the addition of pure metals such as nickel and especially silver significantly reduces the occurrence of brittle phases in the joining area and therefore leads to an increase in welding quality. The proper control of the volume fractions of copper, aluminium and filler material in the melting zone helps to avoid materials segregation and reduces residual stress, consequently leading to a reduction of crack affinity and a stabilization of the mechanical and electrical properties.
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