I think transparent aluminum foil would be awesome - I could tell if my potatoes are cooked on the BBQ without opening the packet.
Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
51–60 of 84 posts
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the film is thin enough metal is transparent. See for instance 50/50 mirrors and gold plated windows. Of course you can now argue that if the photons hit the metal they will not pass through, but that's not how it works: the photons will excite an electron to a higher orbit and it may drop back to a lower orbit on the other side of the film making the metal appear transparent or it may reflect. edit: saiya-jin I c…
that doesn't make sense - if that would be the case, the back-emitted photon would have a random vector, not pertaining the same one as original one (thus preserving the picture beyond the sheet of metal). you are stating somehow the direction of photon is preserved when absorbed by electron - absurd idea even for layman physics (not claiming I know how this works, but this can't be the way)
> you are stating somehow the direction of photon is preserved when absorbed by electron
Well, that is how lasers work :)
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#53Jerry Seinfeld's new material has become super arcane.
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#54The mental imagery of denting, bending and crushing a transparent glass-like material and having it react the same way aluminium would is immensely satisfying for some reason
Am I the only one to recoil at the thought of someone chewing transparent aluminum foil? The potential is tremendous in aviation. Imagine transparent aircraft skins -- the superstructure and internals (fuel tanks, hydraulics, etc.) could be inspected without disassembly (which itself adds stress to the structure). Though I'm not sure passengers would take kindly to aircraft with transparent skins. Sometimes it's best…
You could wrap the cabin interior with OLED panels that are normally active and opaque during flight.
Then, when you're on a longhaul and it's time to wake the passengers up - turn them off in midair. Good morning!
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#55On a completely separate note, what was the deal with the need for transparent aluminum in Star Trek IV? Looking at the footage, they easily could have made the tank bigger if they just used all of the space available and didn't need to be able to "see" them from outside their tank. All they would have needed the aluminum for is to keep water out of where water shouldn't go and regular aluminum (or other material) wo…
I don't think they used transparent aluminum in Star Trek IV. I thought they paid for whatever they used (plexiglass?) with the recipe for transparent aluminum. Although it could just be that I'm forgiving the poor writing.
Wouldn't that mean that nobody ever invented it?
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#56This definitely looks like something that has the potential to be really useful, and gives the example of replacing gorilla glass. While I get that this is a very tough glass, I did not see anything about it's hardness in relation to gorilla glass, as hardness is the property that provides the scratch resistance that is so highly sought after in smartphone screens. Toughness is how much energy a material can absorb,…
According to wikipedia's AlON page it has a knoop hardness of ~1800 which from my understanding of things (I may have misread sources or be mistaken, I'm not a material scientist or even amateur) looks to be about equivalent to sapphire glass and much higher than gorilla glass (~600). edit: in fact while I skipped the intro it states specifically that AlON has ~85% the hardness of sapphire, which more or less checks…
Is there are reason why artificial diamond coating hasn't taken off? Cost?
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe hardness is actually a bad thing in terms of replacing gorilla glass in phones. It increases the likelihood of shattering when dropped, and is the main reason for sapphire not being adopted.
> It increases the likelihood of shattering when dropped AlON seems significantly tougher than glass as well as being way harder. So it looks to be both more scratch-resistant and more shatter-resistant. > is the main reason for sapphire not being adopted. Do you have sources (actual sources, not Corning fearing for their business) for that?
I'm no materials scientist. I just recall some articles I read when I was curious why I hadn't seen sapphire showing up in phone screens. Here is the first article Google pulls up.
http://time.com/3377972/why-apple-didnt-use-sapphire-iphone-...
I agree with you that AlON appears to be harder than glass. I just question if that is necessarily a good thing for consumer electronics. I expect we want something that is very tough but relatively flexible/soft.
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the film is thin enough metal is transparent. See for instance 50/50 mirrors and gold plated windows. Of course you can now argue that if the photons hit the metal they will not pass through, but that's not how it works: the photons will excite an electron to a higher orbit and it may drop back to a lower orbit on the other side of the film making the metal appear transparent or it may reflect. edit: saiya-jin I c…
that doesn't make sense - if that would be the case, the back-emitted photon would have a random vector, not pertaining the same one as original one (thus preserving the picture beyond the sheet of metal). you are stating somehow the direction of photon is preserved when absorbed by electron - absurd idea even for layman physics (not claiming I know how this works, but this can't be the way)
I barely understand even layman-level physics, but it would seem to me that this “absurd” idea is just a natural implication of the conservation of momentum?
edit: to all the downvoters of saiya-jin — let the one who has never defended their incorrect intuitions in physics cast the first downvote!
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ashcroft and Mermin is only an 'introduction' in the graduate student sense of 'introduction'. I don't think you can make sense of it without previous grounding in both quantum mechanics and solid state physics.
Well, he did ask about band gaps. Is there a way to understand band gaps without quantum mechanics? I think you only need a little Fourier analysis to get the basics of band gaps. Anyway, that text and along with Kittel's are the references for an undergraduate solid state course that I'm taking. No prior exposure to solid state physics for me and only introductory quantum mechanics (first half of Griffiths' QM); I f…
Semiconductor Device Fundamentals by Robert F. Pierret was my go-to for undergraduate text. The diagrams speak a thousand words and Pierret is a funny dude. Builds everything up from basic quantum.
Don't mistake it with his graduate text, Advanced Semiconductor Fundamentals, though. That's also a great text, but very short and focuses almost exclusively on the quantum aspect without getting too much into the higher level meat of putting it together to form devices.
For a comprehensive guide, though, Physics of Semiconductor Devices by Simon M. Sze was my reference bible. It's big and bulky, very heavy on the first principles math and physics, and has everything from quantum to devices and variants on devices.
Re: Transparent ceramics made with aluminum
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the film is thin enough metal is transparent. See for instance 50/50 mirrors and gold plated windows. Of course you can now argue that if the photons hit the metal they will not pass through, but that's not how it works: the photons will excite an electron to a higher orbit and it may drop back to a lower orbit on the other side of the film making the metal appear transparent or it may reflect. edit: saiya-jin I c…
that doesn't make sense - if that would be the case, the back-emitted photon would have a random vector, not pertaining the same one as original one (thus preserving the picture beyond the sheet of metal). you are stating somehow the direction of photon is preserved when absorbed by electron - absurd idea even for layman physics (not claiming I know how this works, but this can't be the way)
This is in fact how it works - otherwise mirrors wouldn't work!