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Welding Glass To Metal Is Now Possible Using An Ultrafast Laser System, Researchers Report (phys.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Scientists from Heriot-Watt University have welded glass and metal together using an ultrafast laser system, in a breakthrough for the manufacturing industry. Various optical materials such as quartz, borosilicate glass and even sapphire were all successfully welded to metals like aluminum, titanium and stainless steel using the Heriot-Watt laser system, which provides very short, picosecond pulses of infrared light in tracks along the materials to fuse them together. The new process could transform the manufacturing sector and have direct applications in the aerospace, defense, optical technology and even healthcare fields. Professor Duncan Hand, director of the five-university EPSRC Center for Innovative Manufacturing in Laser-based Production Processes based at Heriot-Watt, said: "Traditionally it has been very difficult to weld together dissimilar materials like glass and metal due to their different thermal properties -- the high temperatures and highly different thermal expansions involved cause the glass to shatter. Being able to weld glass and metals together will be a huge step forward in manufacturing and design flexibility."
He added: "The parts to be welded are placed in close contact, and the laser is focused through the optical material to provide a very small and highly intense spot at the interface between the two materials -- we achieved megawatt peak power over an area just a few microns across. This creates a microplasma, like a tiny ball of lightning, inside the material, surrounded by a highly-confined melt region. We tested the welds at -50C to 90C and the welds remained intact, so we know they are robust enough to cope with extreme conditions."
He added: "The parts to be welded are placed in close contact, and the laser is focused through the optical material to provide a very small and highly intense spot at the interface between the two materials -- we achieved megawatt peak power over an area just a few microns across. This creates a microplasma, like a tiny ball of lightning, inside the material, surrounded by a highly-confined melt region. We tested the welds at -50C to 90C and the welds remained intact, so we know they are robust enough to cope with extreme conditions."
And that will change after welding because ... ? In addition, metal and glass have different brittle vs. flexibility properties, so using them together seems like problematic use cases.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Get me some transparent aluminum, now!
That's been commercially available for years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Joining glass and metal like this has been kind of a "holy grail" for a lot of engineers and scientists, and is likely to enable the creation of some amazing stuff.
This technique is going to produce things that were previously impossible to manufacture; sensors, displays, and touch-sensitive controls, just to name a few. The process could end up being like the invention of the laser was- a solution looking for problems to solve.
When the first lasers became commercially available, a lot of engineers and designers had no idea what they might be good for (and rightfully so). Sure, lasers were cool, but what could you actually do with them?
It didn't take long to figure out the answer was "all sorts of cool shit". And laser LEDs took it to a new level; suddenly you could put an actual fucking laser in practically anything and it didn't require a lot of power. The future had arrived and it was full of lasers.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Dr Evil is waiting until someone manages to add sharks into the equation.
That's why they were called 'slider' phones.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
For the benefit of American readers, Heriot-Watt is in Edinborough. That's in Scotland.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The article itself.
Recently glued a 12" aluminum microwave door handle to the glass microwave door with JB Weld. No lasers required! Works great!