Picosecond Laser Welding of Dissimilar Materials

Many manufacturing applications require the joining of glass components both to other glasses and to dissimilar, semiconductor or metallic, materials. Established processes often exhibit disadvantages particularly in terms of aging, creep or out-gassing issues. Ultrafast glass welding exhibits, in principle, excellent versatility. A combination of linear and non-linear absorption at the interface of two materials can generate a weld seam via highly localised heating, resulting in minimal induced stress even in materials with significantly different thermal properties.
To date the majority of work in ultrafast dissimilar material welding has been carried out with high (MHz) repetition rate femtosecond lasers. We will present our work with the less expensive picosecond range at lower (400kHz) repetition rates in the near infra-red regime. We will demonstrate the ps joining of glass-glass, glass to metals and glass to semiconductors with bond strengths comparable, and in some cases, significantly exceeding current adhesive based bonding techniques.

Significance Statement: This enabling technology provides not only for the replacement of current joining techniques but also the potential for a new scale of ultra high precision micro, and macro scale manufacturing.