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Transparent Aluminum a Reality

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the how-quaint dept.

TuballoyThunder writes "Many of us remember the scene from Star Trek IV where Scotty barters the formula for transparent aluminum for a small run. It now appears that we can now add transparent aluminum to the science fact column."

3 of 759 comments (clear)

  1. A Great Send-Off by jIyajbe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Very appropriate to announce this discovery at the same time James Doohan's remains are being sent into space. One wonders if there is a closet Trekker in the military press office. :-)

    Cheers,

    jIyajbe

    --
    "Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
  2. transparent oxide-nitride, not a metal by Muhammar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    when you read the article, you find out that the material is not aluminum metal. It is just a transparent corund-like substance. Al203 alone is pretty hard (and easy to make - including gem colored versions) and the mixed oxide-nitride is probably harder.

    --
    I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
  3. Pictures by pev · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google finds some pics as expected (Sorry, PDF) :
        http://www.surmet.com/docs/Processing_ALON.pdf

    I'm not 100% certain if they're genuine or mock ups though...

    ~Pev