Welding breakthrough could transform manufacturing

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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 aluminium, 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, defence, optical technology and even healthcare fields.

Read more: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-welding-breakthrough.html