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How does laser glazing turn a small area of crystalline material into glass?

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Laser glazing is a technique used to transform a small area of crystalline material into an amorphous solid by utilizing a brief, intense laser pulse.1

The process works through the following mechanism:
* Melting: The intense energy from the laser pulse rapidly melts a tiny, localized spot of the crystalline material.1
* Quenching: Because the heated area is extremely small, the surrounding cooler material acts as a heat sink. This causes the molten spot to be "quenched"—or cooled—at an extremely high rate.1

By cooling the material so swiftly, the atoms are prevented from rearranging into their original, ordered crystalline structure. Instead, they are "frozen" in a disordered state, resulting in the formation of glass. This method is one of several techniques used to prepare amorphous solids, which are characterized by having short-range atomic order but lacking the long-range order found in crystals.21