For many people, engineering conjures up images of bridges, tunnels and buildings. But the annual University of Cambridge engineering photo competition shows that not only is engineering an incredibly diverse field, it’s a beautiful one too.
This experiment was an attempt to join sapphire to steel by using laser irradiation and titanium foil as a flux. This is a microscope image taken on the periphery of the experiment showing the underside of a sheet of sapphire with a titanium sheet to the left. The condition of the titanium, the brown condensation and all the ejecta on the right demonstrate the energy involved.
The image scale is approximately 1 mm x 0.7 mm.
Photo by Andrew Payne, University of Cambridge
Source: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/bullet-holes-and-graphene-caves-picturing-engineering
