Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : November 13, 2017 - November 17, 2017
Optical glasses are used in a wide range of applications such as lenses in cameras and projectors, medical instruments and window panes. It is highly important to remove cracks in glass in order to prevent breakage, to prolong the lifetime of the glass part and to prevent injury to the user. In this study, the possibility of healing cracks in glass using laser irradiation is presented. Micro-indents, generated under indenting loads, were irradiated using a pulsed laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm using various coating materials at various laser fluences. The results show that laser irradiation greatly decreases the depth of the indents and closes the subsurface cracks. This is due to laser light interaction with glass and coating materials leading to a localized high temperature and the softening of glass.
