[senorprogrammer]

No, the terms picosecond and micron are pretty integral to the process. Imagine using a propane torch to heat up the side of a single brick in an apartment building wall for a few seconds. The temperature change in that brick, considerable compared to all the others, will have effectively no impact on the building itself.

[yetihehe]

Yeah, but it's about long term stresses leading to cracking. I wonder how big elements you can weld with this. Centimeter scale windows for chips will probably have no problems. While screens in mobile phones - I suppose they will crack within weeks/months.

[AstralStorm]

It is very much possible that such essentially atomic level weld will be more resilient than the glass itself.

The interesting bit is if anyone can make new and exciting multilayer material composites using this kind of welding.