Star Trek Fans - Transparent Aluminum is Here!

bmattock

bmattock

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Glass Breakthrough (No Pun Intended)


Glass breakthrough
11 August 2004

Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).

[snip]

The 3M scientists characterised the glasses using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis, and tested the strength of the materials with hardness and fracture toughness tests. They found that their samples were much harder than conventional silica-based glasses and were almost as hard as pure polycrystalline alumina.

Moreover, over 95% of the glasses were transparent (see figure) and had attractive optical properties. For example, fully crystallized alumina-rare earth oxide ceramics showed high refractive indices if the grains were kept below a certain size.
Click to expand...


Could be a lot of fun in store for lens fans! And who knew that Scotty would be right after all - transparent aluminum could be here now!

By the way, I don't know if anyone cares about this kind of stuff except me - I'm such a science nerd.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
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Bill, that's cool news:) however, aluminium and alumina are quite different animals (i guess you knew that already, but maybe for some of the future readers of this:) )

that is, alumina is not a metal anymore... it's closer to sapphire.
 
Pherdinand said:
Bill, that's cool news:) however, aluminium and alumina are quite different animals (i guess you knew that already, but maybe for some of the future readers of this:) )

that is, alumina is not a metal anymore... it's closer to sapphire.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it's a cooler story if I say it is transparent ALUMINUM than alumina. Hehehehe!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
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