How was transparent aluminum created using high power X-ray sources?

[fourier jr]

very cool. & it isn't even the 23rd century yet. i can't even find the part of the abstract where they say they turned it transparent though (i guess it's the 3rd sentence?)
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nphys1341.html

''What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before,’ said Professor Justin Wark of Oxford University’s Department of Physics, one of the authors of the paper. ‘Transparent aluminium is just the start. The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of 'miniature stars' created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth.’

The discovery was made possible with the development of a new source of radiation that is ten billion times brighter than any synchrotron in the world (such as the UK’s Diamond Light Source). The FLASH laser, based in Hamburg, Germany, produces extremely brief pulses of soft X-ray light, each of which is more powerful than the output of a power plant that provides electricity to a whole city.

The Oxford team, along with their international colleagues, focused all this power down into a spot with a diameter less than a twentieth of the width of a human hair. At such high intensities the aluminium turned transparent.

Whilst the invisible effect lasted for only an extremely brief period – an estimated 40 femtoseconds – it demonstrates that such an exotic state of matter can be created using very high power X-ray sources.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090727130814.htm

 

[junglebeast]

1) How is an "ion" a whole new state of matter?

2) My graphics textbook says that metals can be modeled well as dielectrics with very high optical density, and that thin pieces of metal do look transparent naturally

3) "the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser." sounds pretty impressive until you learn that,

"The world's brightest X-ray source sprang to life last week at the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) offers researchers the first-ever glimpse of high-energy or "hard" X-ray laser light produced in a laboratory."

(this coming from my previous post about the new X-ray laser),
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=309012&highlight=x-ray+laser

 

[B. Elliott]

Haven't people been playing with this for almost five years now? Or is this something different?

Transparent Aluminum Armor

Transparent aluminum armor (aluminum oxynitride - ALON) is being tested by the military as a lighter and stronger alternative to traditional materials.

http://www.space.com/technology/top10-star-trek-tech-3.html


How Transparent Aluminum Armor Works

With a sense of optimism restrained by economic reality, the U.S. Air Force announced in 2005 the results of a series of tests conducted on the materia*l the previous year.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/transparent-aluminum-armor.htm

 

[Ivan Seeking]

very cool. & it isn't even the 23rd century yet.

Recall that Scotty gave us the formula back in the 1980s [90s?] when he came back to get some whales.

 

[waht]

Recall that Scotty gave us the formula back in the 1980s [90s?] when he came back to get some whales.

you mean this one

http://www.scifitv.com.au/Content/Blog/Pictures/Transparent_Aluminum2.jpg

 

[junglebeast]

That was a good star trek movie :) much better than the latest one

 

[mgb_phys]

Transparent aluminum armor (aluminum oxynitride - ALON)

If you are allowed to use oxides then transparent aluminium isn't all that rare.