Laser welding may be devided into two types of welding: conduction welding and key-hole welding. When doing welding by melting, the beam heats up the surface of the material, and the heat conduction leads the heat into the material to create the depth of the weld. This is mainly used for thinner materials. The benefit compared to conventional welding methods, is that it is easier to obtain a very high surface quality of the weld, and that it is faster. It is not as fast as the most used laser welding method:

Key-hole welding. In key hole welding, the high intensity beam creates a hole into the material by evaporating a very small amount of the material. The high pressure of the evaporated material pushes the melted material to the sides, allowing the beam to penetrate deep into the material before the melt has time to widen due to heat conduction. This allows for deep and fast welding, with a minimum of heat input to the base material, and thus minimal thermally induced tensions and deformations of the part.