Slashdot Mirror
Laser Turns All Metals Black
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at the University of Rochester have found a way to change the properties of almost any metal by using a femtosecond laser pulse. This ultra-intense laser blast creates true 'black metal' from copper, gold or zinc by forming nanostructures at the surface of the metal. As these nanostructures capture radiation, the metals turn black. And as the process needs surprisingly low power, it could soon be used for a variety of applications, such as stealth planes, black jewels or car paintings. But read more for additional references and a picture of this femtosecond laser system."
Does this black metal have any special properties aside from being black? The article mainly talks about other ways of making it black not being as good- is that all this really does?
Isn't applying a coat of black paint easier?
Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors.
Your spaceship is ready....
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
This ultra-intense laser blast creates true 'black metal'
Rubbish, true 'black metal'
(sniff... brings back memories of seeing them in '83.)
Trolling is a art,
Are we talking like optical black, suitable for coating the insides of instruments like telescopes and microscopes?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Interesting applications listed, detectors, chemistry, etc. What I'm wondering is the question implied by the editor, can this blast be used to make the metal absorb radar waves? If they can made a laser pulse make the substance absorb all visible EM radiation, can they do the same for invisible? This could have significant applications for the military if it can, not just for better stealth aircraft, but think of it. An invisible to radar destroyer, aircraft carrier, tank even. This is defiantly worth keeping an eye on, for the many scientific applications as well as the military ones. If it's really as easy as creating a femptosecond pulse to make something stealth many other nations would be able to do it soon as well.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
How long until you can get your logos engraved onto your laptop/ipod in black (instead of the current efforts).
liqbase
Wow, to turn it into pure black metal, they must have to measure the femtosecond using a Dethklok.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Picture can be found here
I really should just go to bed...
DugUK
and his additional references
A friend of mine is studying chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and one of the devices he most likes to talk about is their femtosecond laser, mainly because everytime he mentions it to non-scientists he obtains lots of funny blank stares. A literature student myself, now I finally discover that device has an immediate, practical utility! It can turn metals black, w00t!
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
"None more black"
Lay Down Your Souls To The Gods' Rock and Roll!!! UGH, UGH, UGH!!! BLACK METAL!!!!! \m/
As usual, tag as "pigpile" to warn others not to click on Roland Piquepaille's adwhore blog...
See, paint isn't really bloody expensive. Anything that goes on a government procurement request has to be really bloody expensive (done by the lowest bidder, because you need to *economize* on that $10 billion make-work project, darn it). Expect the Space Shuttle and our new fighter planes to get a quick laser blasting in the near future.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I wonder if this helps reduce rust and/or other corrosion and/or resistance to reaction with liquids?
Cool trend prediction - black hockey skate blades in the NHL.
"wall outlet" ease of the use + "it would drill a hole through your skin" = ultimate home security system
a black engagement ring? perfect for your goth bride! Buy One Now!
Since it's the holiday, the usual rants against the article submitter, Roland Piquepaille, have been rather muted. To sum up:
* He gets a lot of articles posted to the front page, which makes the rest of us jealous.
* His articles tend toward pseudoscience, or at least towards the sort of flashy, headline-inspiring science that does little to advance human knowledge.
* He used to link to his personal blog, which really irritated people who'd love to have their own blogs get Slashdotted on a regular basis.
* He now links to his zdnet blog, which really irritates people who'd love to have their own blogs get picked up by a big corporate website.
* To top it all off, he's French, so all the right-wing nutters hate him automatically.
My irritation comes mostly from the second point -- and, I'll confess, the first as well. But as his defenders (and even the Slashdot editors) have noted, it's not like he's got some inside line to CmdrTaco's desk. He just finds himself at the right place at the right time.
Nonetheless, I recommend continuing to tag his articles with "pigpile", just so's we can keep up.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
We all know that true black metal is Mayhem.
*bows to Mr Adams*
black is the new gold.
(and silver, and bronze..)
Seems like the perfect coating for solar panels for hot water. The search has always been for the best heat absorbing surface. This type of coating should be the most efficent coating for heat absorbsion.
Does it also make the metal grym and frosbitten?
The article mentions needing no more power than is available from an electrical socket.... Assuming you could then also battery power it, you'd have the potential to vandalize any bare metal in public with black marks that are "impossible" to rub off...
Sounds like a nightmare to me.
I, for one, welcome our new black metal overlords
New heatsinks!
I wanna see it painted, painted black....
Cool! Now I can have my pocket pistol, and my revolver, and my assault rifle, and my sniper rifle all coated with this sexy stealth laserbeam coating! Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Black fucking metal from Norway loves Satan!
...basically, twisted metal -> black?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Who says it's impossible to rub off? It's a very thin surface treatment. A quick rub with sandpaper should remove it to ordinary metal. And no reason you coudn't paint over it. Actually paint might adhere better to a fuzzy surface like this, when repainting over over an enamel paint job you take the shine off it with some fine sandpaper first.
He's BAACK! Roland the Plogger, at it again, flogging his blog.
But can in turn Diamonds black? Diamond is one of the hardest, if not THE hardest metal known to mankind.
blacker than the blackest black times infinity...
Really. And what are they using to power this laser, then? Europe's power gird? Otherwise I think I might have noticed the entire grid failing all at once, especially since one would assume they've performed the experiment multiple times....
Plus I'd hate to see that poor bastards electrical bill....
Wow, I can't believe how much of a geek I am that I knew without looking anything up that it was Hotblack Desiato, not Desoto.
Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
They found on the way that by using a nanosecond laser they produced Emo metal, which can cut itself.
Task Mangler
"This ultra-intense laser blast creates true 'black metal' from copper, gold or zinc by forming nanostructures at the surface of the metal."
Since when were there only 3 metals known to mankind? The summary blows.
Then you look at the articles.
"The key to creating black metal is an ultra-brief, ultra-intense beam of light called a femtosecond laser pulse. The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second. To get a grasp of that kind of speed--a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years."
And:
"Currently, the process is slow. To alter a strip of metal the size of your little finger easily takes 30 minutes or more, but Guo is looking at how different burst lengths, different wavelengths, and different intensities affect metal's properties. Fortunately, despite the incredible intensity involved, the femtosecond laser can be powered by a simple wall outlet, meaning that when the process is refined, implementing it should be relatively simple."
I'm guessing this has to do with etching an intricate structure. Perhaps also that the laser can only be fired at a given rate. None of this is explained at all well.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Does this black metal have any special properties aside from being black?
Well, that one property alone makes it excellent for building Ford Model-Ts.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
All the unaccounted for dark matter is covered in nanotubes.
This is why today is known as "Black Friday" in the USA ^_^
So this could make for more efficient thermal solar panels.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This technology has huge ramifications for chemical reactions that need a catalyst, and also in the area of fuel cells.
Unlike Roland, I actually try to link to the article and not some empty blog. Roland, your technology trends suck. Link to the originating article you fool!
Physorg
Also, does Roland even have a degree in science? Because he sure doesn't ever seem to have a grasp of the important things in the articles he submits.
You are a genius.
I would presume that this is a very thin portion of the surface, since there is no data given, and that it sounds like it heats the metal to a vapor (maybe plasma?) and allows it to cool so quickly that it "freezes" in microstructures (excuse me - nanostructures). For all soft metals, then, a simple scratch would reveal the shiny surface free of the effects below the new "coating". Also, a surface with near zero emissivity and high conductivity would likely cause burns very quickly if left in the sun on a summer day. How would you like a nice burn from your car should you accidentally graze your spiffy black racing stripe? Also, wouldn't there be a propensity for these nano-strucutures to foul due to a microseive-like effect - collecting all the crud that just floated by? Seems like a nightmare to clean after pollen season.
It certainly does have some applications, and optics seems to be the obvious place. Having an emissivity of (well, they didn't say) 1e-8 would certainly make baffles more efficient.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So if I take one of these lasers and swap out the one in my CD player, will all my White Snake albums come out as Black Sabbath?
> Actually paint might adhere better to a fuzzy surface like this...
Good idea. Paint or adhesive preparation is a possible application.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Samuel L. Jackson can star in the next Terminator movie.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
I am designing a new wardrobe, and I believe this material will do nicely.
- Anakin Skywalker
Hopefully "chaos" black, i could save a heap undercoating my warhammer miniatures then.
;(
Wait, i don't live in north america and have a line into THE NATIONAL GRID, guess i can't power one
...
If you know so much then tell me where my copy of the Hitchhiker's Trilogy has gotten off to.
WTF are you talking about.
And I want to paint it black with a fricken laserbeam
Great new book on Evolution: The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
Man has finally learned how to turn gold into something resembling lead.
God spoke to me.
Hmm... this "paint" is the exact opposite of the tinfoil. Coincidence, eh?
During an interview at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Hotblack Desiato commented about how nice this "Black Metal" accented the interior of the new Disaster Area stunt ship.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If the laser can be modulated it could be used to etch a quasi-indestructible CD-ROM kind of media. For example gold or titanium could last a long while.
Doh! my bad, I thought it was the parent, not the correction which had been modded ... need to get some coffee! %(
...so black even the white bits will be black.
for those of us who can't think due to the triptophan...
b lack_Desiato
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotblack_Desiato#Hot
for me, it didn't click until half way though the second sentence...
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
As usual, tag as "pigpile" to warn others not to click on Roland Piquepaille's adwhore blog...Grow up. Do you make the same claims when NewYorkCountryLawyer posts to his blog with [gasp] ads on it? Do you advocate tagging those articles with "cuntlawyer" or something? Look at his history... he's had 8 accepted stories since September alone! So cuntlawyer has more than your pigpile and he has no less than separate 5 blocks of ads on his adwhore blog. And his is the ultimate ad because the purpose of his blog is to sell you his legal services.
Or you can just block ads from anywhere you want and enjoy the submissions for what they are... interesting.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just how black is black? Is it more black than traditional 'black' such as black paint or charcoal?
I'd also love to see an absorption spectrum for this stuff. Is it black in Infrared, UV, microwave, radar etc.?
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
This could hardly be used for car paintings, or any other big surfaces, since:
"For example, blackening a piece of metal the size of a little finger currently takes about 30 minutes."
And matt black hasn't ever been a favourite car color.
Some questions that spring to untutored mind..
Nanoscale forces: Would it become sticky due to Van der Waals forces like gecko feet?
Magnetism: does the laser destroy magnetic properties? What if you laser processed while in a high magnetic field, could you control alignment of the nanoscale structures? Could you sculpt forms at nanoscale? Does laser melt the metal or what is actually going on?
Interaction with nanoparticles: Would this make a good nano filter? Does surface show an affinity for certain substances?
Metallurgy: Sounds like it makes an extremely sharp surface. Would this be the ultimate cutting surface? Can this be used to fuse different metals at the nanoscale?
If short intense light beams do this, what about short intense electrical jolts of similar scale (or is it the same thing really)?
Absorption: Could the nanostructure shapes be duplicated scaled up to absorb longer frequencies? Do different laser frequencies make structures that absorb different bands?
How about for high contrast antiglare screens?
Surface area: With such high surface area, might it possibly catalyze all kinds of reactions.. for example would any poisonous gases maybe arise at the surface when in a normal smoggy atmosphere? What about when it comes in contact with organic molecules?
Electronic: If electrified would the surface act like little antennas and maybe sparks? The other article about nitric acid etching of phosphorous does do that.. a few more percent concentration and craters become stalagmites.
Would conductive, high surface area particles like these be useful in batteries or selective membranes?
What does the coating look like at a nanoscale anyway? Article's "a black picture won't tell you anything" is silly.
Safety: If it scrapes off is it going to enter your blood and brain? If you rub it will you dye your fingers black?
Optics: How could this improve even small telescopes or video cameras? How much would it affect ability to discover extrasolar planets with current tech?
Not only that, but went they went to the bathroom and used the black toilet, they found their shit was black, even when they smeared it all over their faces which, one by one, were slowly turning black. The food dispenser spewed out only black milk, milked by black people from black cows. In fact, it was soon discovered that everything in the room automatically turned black. As Zaphod stood there wiping off his face, he was shocked to learn that the dribbling down his chin of Ford Prefect's semen was also black.
Black metallic sex toys, piercings, and rings.
Bright and shiny just doesn't do it.
Of course this means the price is going to go waaaay up. Grrr.
Cheers.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
Those sharks just got deadlier...
The cost-effective way to get a black Mac laptop.
Apple picks up on this and starts cranking out ultra-black iPods?
This "technology" is nothing new. Just a prof trying to make something mundane sound flashy.
Hit things with enough laser fluence and the surface atoms will move around, and may even be blasted off of the surface. This is the basis of a standard materials synthesis technique, pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Hit a target with a laser, and collect the ejected material on a nearby crystal.
Anyone who has done PLD knows that the surface of the target gets rough when you blast it. If the target is a metal, and the roughness is smaller than the wavelength of light (nanoscale), it will absorb light - it will be black.
In any case, the article asserts that the "blackness" is a material property and is therefore permanent. Nonsense. Touch it and the surface particles will rub off, leaving behind a shiny metal surface. Further, I'd be extremely surprised if there weren't tons of existing patents on surface modification by lasers. There are certainly tons of academic publications on the topic.
We'll make our own black obeliks now thankyou... now if we could just make them invulnerable to damage.
...and as of Nov. 24th none of them have been documented to ever go back.
Now it's only a matter of time before Jesse Jackson and the NAACP file a lawsuit to stop this mad scientist and his "blackness maker"
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
These things become commoditized? How about going around and femtosecond-blasting jewelry of the rich and famous. Or, visiting a jewelry store and blasting their jewels through the glass? I see a sudden uptick in sales of surveillance cameras for jewelry stores and other places where "black is beautiful" is likely to destroy their businesses.
I wonder if what this thing would do to the teeth of those gold-mouth rappers and people on the streets. What? You got an interview toMORROW? 1-800-DENTIST will be smiling all the way to the black-back-to-gold bank.
If these things can femto-blast a few dozen times, automobile taggers will have a field day. So will body shops getting work orders.
Oh, is that Diet Pepsi or Regular? I can't tell. It's a black six-pack. Hate that local deputy in a small town? Sit next to him/her at the diner and femto-blast their nickel-plated revolver black, or patch-black, since most of it will be in the holster. (assuming this small-town cop/sheriff is playin' Buford Pusser or Duke Calley or something from the 70's...)
Ben Wah balls can now be blackened...
You can pretty much "blacken the shit" out of anything metal.
But, I see the biggest "bang" for mischief coming from laser-pointer sized femto-second blasters. Well, as long as they don't emit light doing their work. If so, then maybe the dance club would be an interesting place to use this thing...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Another way to create true black metal is to play music really fast onto a noisy old tape recorder.
And I thought cars where allready hot on summer days ;) Sounds like this thing would cook your poodle full spectrum.
Nice job this is
AAAAARGHH!!!
Am I the only one that thought about that when reading the article?
Unbling
Something crawled out of the fridge and eat it!
Always make shure the fridge is locked securly before going to sleep!
ought to be black - then they are most effective.
accept no limits but time
If you know so much then tell me where my copy of the Hitchhiker's Trilogy has gotten off to.
It's run off with your biros.
~o~ Lasers tried to destroy the metal, but the metal was too strong! ~o~
I have this feeling that my luck is none too good
This sword here at my side don't act the way it should
Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave
Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave
And it howls! It howls like hell!
"This ultra-intense laser blast creates true 'black metal' from copper, gold or zinc ...."
Death to false black metal!
:)
...George Bush hates black metals. :(
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
'Tis no suprise, for black be the colour of Piquepaille's heart, though gold be the colour of his ambition and blood-red the colour of his methods.
GROOOAR!
Black DeLorean... Need I say more?
Most black materials will reflect a percent or so of the light falling on it. This reflects less than 0.1%. It is weird to look at: you get no clue to the shape of the object because no light comes back.
The bad news? Well, basically, it is soot, and it wipes off. It is probably too delicate for the insides of ordinary cameras, and bits might drop off if you sent it into space. It does not work with all materials, and gold gives the best black.
(subject)
One of the main points of this technique is that it is the closest ever to "true black," being almost completely non-reflective in most wavelengths.
If I was a defense contractor reading that I would say..."Hmmm can we make it portable, about the size of a rifle?"
Nigel Tufnel: It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
Marty DiBergi: Unless you had a femtosecond laser.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
If this absorbs light/IR/etc. won't it get very hot if you leave it out in the sun? I can't imagine being in a car which absorbs all that energy (and converts it to heat).
No sig today...
The current world champion black is Martin black, developed on nickle back in the 1930's--the Martin in Lockheed-Martin discovered it. It is widely used for thermal balancing spacecraft, often in large panels. I have friends who have worked with it (secret family recipe), and standing next to a large section of it is painful--your eyes have nothing to focus on, but they keep trying and it hurts after a while! We're talking really really really seriously black.
I wonder how this compares to Martin black? You really would not want a car as black as Martin black (forget fragility issues).
wouldn't the object _have_ to radiate something in order to it to not turn into a cinder the second it was in sunlight?
Your post is the stupidest I've read all week.
As long as you like black -- who doesn't? goodbye primer, paint, and/or clearcoat!
Gimme a blackened aluminum-skin electric roadster, please.
by someone really really old....
A laser that turns all metals black. All metals being copper, zinc, and gold. As if these are the only metals around.
Time to wake up. It isn't the bronze age anymore.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
So the Alchemists have at last achieved the long sought goal of transmuting Gold into Lead. Oh wait.......
Whoops - you're right. I meant zero reflectivity. A perfectly emissive body, e=1.0, is also a black body, and will have neither a reflective nor transmissive component. Stray light control is really what I presume was meant, as it's use as an actual detector (as the article suggested) makes very little sence for most optical detectors (yes, I've worked with optics).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Please mod this parent up as he's the only one in this "golden masters" conversation that actually knows what the hell he's talking about.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
I'm sure Black Sabath did it first and louder. It's not hard to make black metal~! :-)
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Already discussed in postings, but worth repeating: By definition, the blacker a material is, the more photons it absorbs. Ultra-black materials are particularly useful if you are making photosensitive materials (e.g. cameras) or any sort of photo collector (e.g. PV cells).
At the mine on Zerok, they process the gold. They change its atomic constitution. It turns black. And it's useless until it's reprocessed, and that can't happen unless you know the computer code that was used on Zerok the day it was processed. Zerok won't release that code until the gold is in the hands of the Federation.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Because that is a lyric. "Any color that you'd like, as long as it's black."
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com