***Scottish laser wizards are capable of welding optical materials – such as glass – with various metals. They are using an ultrafast laser system that welds using picosecond pulses of an infrared laser and this may bring us another industrial revolution!***

<center>![welding1209208_1920.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/kralizec/9F7gATnK-welding-1209208_1920.jpg)</center>

* Be also sure to check out my other posts and follow me @kralizec and subscribe to my Youtube channel at [Kralizec Gaming Youtube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM6bVobsVUBzJ-oqajqI-eA)

Welding non-similar materials is usually very difficult. The main problem is the fact that these materials tend to have different thermal properties. Just imagine, welding glass and iron and you will quickly get glass “tears”. But that is about to change. A team from the Heriot-Watt University in Scotland developed a breakthrough technology capable of exactly that.

Duncan Hand and his coworkers developed a system that fires very short – in the range of picoseconds – infrared pulses that welding otherwise unweldable materials. They managed to weld various optical materials such as silica, borosilicate glass or sapphire with metals such as aluminum, titanium or stainless steel.

This new process could change many of the current ways we use in industrial use. It could also bring incredible applications in aviation, space industry, defense technologies, optics or even in the health industry. This truly is a large step forward as nowadays we can connect metals with other materials using glues. But glues have many problems – they often evaporate and the lifespan on such joints tends to be limited.

So, how does picosecond infrared laser welding work? You put the metal and glass parts close together. The pulses of the laser pass through the optical material and create very small but at the same time very hot areas between the welded materials. These areas are just a few microns in size but can have up to a megawatt in energy pumped in. This results in microplasma being created – a tiny piece of plasma that is surrounded by a sharp border of molten material.

This process leads to durable joints. The researchers tested the joints in temperatures ranging from -50°C (-58°F) to 90°C (194°F) and they stayed undamaged. All so far suggests that they could be capable of surviving even extreme conditions. Hopefully, soon we will see practical uses for this amazing new technology.

**Sources:**
* https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/news/2019/welding-breakthrough-could-transform.htm

---

* If you like the content I’m producing about science maybe you will like the content I produce about gaming as well! Be sure to check out my other posts!