Abstract

Internal modification of transparent media by femtosecond lasers has been demonstrated in the last 15 years to be a versatile tool for waveguide manufacturing, selective etching, and local welding just to mention a few [1]. Particularly the use of high repetition lasers leads to the unique possibility of fabricating internal welds [2]. The application of such internal welds is amongst others the global cold and adhesive-free bonding of transparent materials. So far, the bonding was studied in various glasses, also of dissimilar type [2]. Bonding strengths close to the material breaking strength have been achieved [3], which makes this technology applicable for real world applications. However, it would be attractive for a wide field of applications to transfer this technology to the material class of crystals, where internal melting has not been reported so far.

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