Laser Turns All Metals Black 333
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."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Laser etching craze (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey look the Roland Template Script is back (Score:3, Interesting)
and his additional references [google.com]
Re:Blackness (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Blackness (Score:2, Interesting)
Having an aircraft made out of treated metal would make it one heck of a (visually) stealth plane. As it is, the U.S. stealth planes require a going-over with a fine tooth comb after each mission to ensure no scratches, dents, or chips are in the paint. Presumably a metal approach would reduce turn around time.
Oh yea, and black kicks ass.
Solar collectors (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Applications: Vandalism (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Blackness (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Paint lacks an important property (Score:2, Interesting)
So maybe.... (Score:2, Interesting)
May not be such a great idea for consumer items (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Can it be used for long term archival (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Blackness (Score:5, Interesting)
For those having difficulty reconciling the "entire power output of the US from a standard AC outlet" thing, understand that you are radiating for a ridiculously short period of time, so you can get a very high peak power in that pulse while still having a very low average power usage if you can unload a decent percentage of the entire duty cycle's worth of power in that one pulse. The Nd:YAG machines that I worked with were only 90 watts or so CW (continuous wave), but when you cranked the Q-switch down to a low enough rate, you could get a peak power in excess of a quarter-million watts in each 10 microsecond pulse. 10 microseconds is 10 *billion* times longer than a femtosecond (same comparison: one second to 317 years), so you have the possibility of having staggeringly large peak powers in these really short pulses.
Re:anything special? (Score:5, Interesting)