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Transparent Aluminum Is "New State of Matter"

Posted by timothy on from the baseball-bats-will-never-be-the-same dept.

Professor_Quail writes with this interesting excerpt: "Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminum by bombarding the metal with the world's most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminum' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion."

2 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. No, they didn't make transparent aluminum. by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    short pulse from the FLASH laser 'knocked out' a core electron from every aluminum atom in a sample without disrupting the metal's crystalline structure. This turned the aluminum nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.
    ..."Whilst the invisible effect lasted for only an extremely brief period - an estimated 40 femtoseconds..."

    OK. so they took a really powerful soft X-ray pulse source and hammered an electron out of most of the atoms in a sample of aluminum. In 40 femtoseconds (!) the electrons were replaced, but for a brief period, the material would pass "extreme ultraviolet radiation". This isn't a "new material"; it's an old material in a very transient state. They were able to do this without blasting the aluminum apart, which is the new result. On the other hand, metals can be forced into electron-deprived states without too much trouble. Ordinary vacuum tubes do this.

    The terminology here is puzzling. "Extreme ultraviolet radiation" and "soft X-rays" are in the same part of the spectrum. Does this mean that after being zapped with the giant X-ray pulse, some of the soft X-rays made it through? Or did they have two different illumination sources?

    Also see "Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation Transport in Laser-Irradiated High-Z Metal Foils", from 1981, where someone seems to have come close to the same phenomenon.

  2. Re:This is a great breakthrough... by asdf7890 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A "keyboard"... how quaint.

    So why was he so good with it? Punch cards are quaint from my perspective but I wouldn't know where to start with them. Is he also proficient with using a morse code transmitter?

    Maybe using an "old style" keyboard had become something of a game, something that engineering students would compete on to prove they were hard core.

    Or maybe, just maybe, it is only a piece of entertainment. If you are going to fail to suspend disbelief at the moment Scotty is able to use a keyboard proficiently how did you get through the previous scenes like the time travel thing, the whales communicating with aliens, and so on.

    I will go shoot myself now, for being sad enough to post the above!