The Wonders of Transparent Aluminum

Science
The Wonders of Transparent Aluminum

AlON Dome

Those of you, um, enthusiastic enough to remember Star Trek IV may recall the scene embedded here. If not, let me set up the clip: The crew of the Enterprise has gone into the past to retrieve some whales, OK? And take them “back to the future,” to coin a phrase. But Scotty has a problem: He needs stuff to build a giant whale tank on the ship, but he has no goods to trade with, because, you know, in the future they only work to better themselves and nobody but a Ferengi would stoop to carrying money around. So Scotty barters his knowledge of 23rd century materials technology with a 20th century engineer, who agrees to make him what he needs in exchange.

YouTube player

The 23rd century material in question is “transparent aluminum,” and today I’m here to tell you: That future has arrived. Sort of. Pretty much.

The scene, as written, seems to imply that Scotty is talking about some fancy way of making metallic aluminum into a transparent form. Which ain’t happening. What has happened, however, (and in fact what was happening in research circles at least as far back as 1981) is the development of a transparent aluminum-based ceramic called aluminum oxynitride, aka “AlON,” that sounds a heckuva lot like the stuff Scotty is peddling. In fact, Star Trek IV came out in 1986, and it’s entirely likely that one of the film’s six (!) credited writers got wind of transparent aluminum from then-ongoing publicity about AlON, and decided to use it in the script.

Transparent aluminum starts out as a pile of white aluminum oxynitride powder. That powder gets packed into a rubber mold in the rough shape of the desired part, and subjected to a procedure called isostatic pressing, in which the mold is compressed in a tank of hydraulic fluid to 15,000 psi, which mashes the AlON into a grainy “green body.” The grainy structure is then fused together by heating at 2000 °C for several days. The surface of the resulting part is cloudy, and has to be mechanically polished to make it optically clear.

YouTube player

All that work pays off. AlON can do amazing things. Here, for instance, a 1.6″ thick AlON plate successfully resists a huge, powerful .50 AP bullet that smashes easily through more than twice that thickness of conventional laminated glass armor, with plenty of energy left over to extremely kill a plastic mannequin head.

It’s expensive, of course, and so generally reserved for high-performance applications, especially in military fields. AlON is manufactured by Massachusetts-based Surmet Corporation for use in armored windows, lenses for battlefield optics, and “seeker domes,” which are the clear round windows covering the sensor heads on the business ends of many missiles. If you want to read further, Tom Scheve has prepared a good bibliography over at HowStuffWorks.

140 thoughts on “The Wonders of Transparent Aluminum

  1. John Bear Ross says:

    I still like picking up my mouse from time to time, and saying, “hello, computer,” into it. When no one’s watching, of course.
    Cool beans, about the ALON process. Thanks for that.
    Best,
    JBR

  2. JoAnna Matthews says:

    My question is a sheet of AION in the dimensions listed in the movie able to handle the force of that much water?

    1. Brian Hoyt says:

      Transparent aluminum was not used to make the whale tank, that was good old plexiglass. Scotty ‘paid’ for the plexiglass with the formula for TA.

      1. wil says:

        but scotty said that a piece transparent aluminum at 60 feet by 10 feet by 1 inch could hold back 18,000 cubic feet of water
        SCOTTY
        Ah, what else indeed? Let me put it
        another way: how thick would a piece
        of your plexiglass need to be at 60
        feet by 10 feet to withstand the
        pressure of 18,000 cubic feet of
        water?

        NICHOLS
        That’s easy: 6 inches. We carry
        stuff that big in stock.

        SCOTTY
        Yes, I noticed. Now suppose — just
        suppose — I could show you a way to
        manufacture a wall that would do the
        same job but was only an inch thick.
        would that be worth something to
        you, eh?

  3. MatthewMaynard.net » Not for use in aquariums says:

    […] Not for use in aquariums January 17th, 2012 Matt Maynard Leave a comment Go to comments Montgomery Scott, call your office: Transparent Aluminum. […]

  4. John Wiggins says:

    sorry to be “that guy” but it wasn’t the Enterprise that went back in time but a Klingon warship.

    1. Sean Ragan says:

      That is OK! Thanks for the correction!

    2. charlie says:

      He didn’t say the Enterprise, he said “the crew of the Enterprise”.

      1. Sean Ragan says:

        Though I appreciate your leaping to my defense, in fact it originally said “the Enterprise,” and I later corrected it to “the crew of the Enterprise.”

        Now that I think about it, this distinction was a crucial plot point: As I recall, it was significant that they went back in a Klingon ship because they had to be able to hide the ship from 20th century Earth dwellers using a cloaking device. And the Federation doesn’t use cloaking technology. I think. I may be digging myself a hole, here… =]

        1. Jake Spurlock says:

          Actually, the Defiant could cloak…

          The Defiant is the first Starfleet ship to legally carry a cloaking device. Supplied by the Romulan Star Empire, the cloak is initially operated by a Romulan officer serving aboard the Defiant. An agreement between Starfleet and the Romulans limits the use of the cloak to intelligence-gathering missions in the Gamma Quadrant in exchange for all of Starfleet’s intelligence on the Dominion. However, on several occasions, such as the rescue of the Detapa Council (DS9: “The Way of the Warrior”), the cloaking device was used illegally in the Alpha Quadrant.

          1. cavemankanoa says:

            Well, the Defiant came along over a hundred years after the fact.

        2. Syr Dunstin says:

          Also, was the Defiant’s cloak the side effect of the Federation’s research into phase shifting tech? I’m not the ‘ginormous geek’ that some of y’all are, but I seem to remember that part of the reason for the Romulan/Federation Cloak treaty was in part the Defiant herself, and that the fact that the cloak effect also made the ship out of phase, and thus, both immune to damage and able to pass through regular matter. Something to do with Reicher’s alternate self going on a rampage…and the issue with Defiant’s being 100 years later has no functional bearing, since we’re discussing Time Travel, in the first place…

          1. Kaziarl says:

            No, Defiant came later too. The treaty was something like 70-80 years old at that point. The one Riker was involved in was the USS Pegasus, which did have a phase cloak. The Defiant was allowed by the Romulans to confront to possible threat of the Dominion. (Yes, I know, I have no life)

      2. Kit Fenderson-Peters says:

        @Jake: Note, however, that the Defiant postdates Star Trek IV’s initial timeline (time travel notwithstanding) by approximately 100 years (ST IV set in 2386, U.S.S. Defiant launched in 2370).

        Why yes, I am a ginormous geek. ;)

        1. King says:

          2286. Not 2386. I’m trying to work out how you could have thought DS9 was before the launch of the Enterprise A…

          1. David Robb says:

            LOL I love this discussion. The reason they were in a Klingon Bird of Prey was not that they needed to be able to cloak. it was because the Enterprise was destroyed at the end of Star Trek iii and they took over the Klingon ship. They were on their way home to face the consequences when the Probe came to earth to talk to the whales. As far as the Cloaking device goes. Its not that the federation didn’t have the tech. they stole it in ” the enterprise incident” (Kirk as a Romulan was priceless) episode of the original series. its that they signed an agreement with the Romulans that they would not install it in any federation star ships.

  5. Alan S. Blue says:

    Al2O3 has (clear) sapphire as one of its forms. (The gemstone colors come from impurities.) Pricier to manufacture, but it has some interesting properties as well. Not only clear to the normal visual range, it’s also transparent in the ultraviolet and the vacuum ultraviolet. It doesn’t start start melting until something like 2000C. (I’d give the exact number, but Wikipedia is protesting the insane SOPA thing today.)

    I don’t know about its properties with regards to bullets, but it’s a pretty tough single-crystal type of material. Holding the ‘whale tank’ in something less than an inch-thick plate sounds eminently plausible.

    It also just will -not- burn and is quite chemically inert. You’re at the bottom of the amazing thermite reaction – the oxygens really like being with the aluminum.

    1. Christopher J. Joubert says:

      2303 K IIRC

      1. Ren says:

        It’s spelled “Kirk” and I don’t think 2303 was the right year either!
        ;)

    2. robert says:

      sounds like a good window for the Space shuttle….
      oh ya they retired it…
      good window for a space station?

  6. Kevin says:

    I had seen a similar article on a site that I think used to be called “Sci-Fighter” and it was back in 2001/2002 describing a very similar process that the Germans were using, but as I recall, their results had an orange cast to them instead of being optically clear.

    Cool stuff!

  7. Brandon says:

    Can you please make my iPhone screen out of that, now? Apple?

  8. Jack says:

    That’s so funny. I have a wireless mouse so I can walk around the house and still give orders to my computer. Man, the old days were so quaint!

  9. Annubis Blog - Das Star Trek Zeitalter hat begonnen – Durchsichtiges Aluminium – Bald coole neue Produkte says:

    […] ist es Wirklichkeit. Es gebe zwar kein metallisches Aluminium, das durchsichtig sei, berichtet das US-Magazin Make, aber ein keramisches: Aluminiumoxynitrid, kurz: Alon – und Make hat auch gleich eine […]

  10. Sea Bear says:

    As for the transparent aluminum mentioned in StarTrek, it has been around for a long time and was used as a bullet shield at Obama’s Inaguration.

    Another use is as a chrystal on rolex watches.

    1. matt says:

      i dont know much about the glass but i konw for sure his little podium was a ton of kevlar. My Friend in stagehands union built it.

  11. Mateo says:

    RIP James Doohan and Defoest Kelly

  12. Curiosità su processi chimici - Pagina 30 says:

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  13. Richard H Chapman says:

    Star Trek was always coming up with stuff that, like Jules Verne, was eerily prophetic. Remember the Shatner days and the computer library chips that were little squares? And know we have thumb drives. The formula for the probability of life sustaining planets in the cosmos? Nobody ever challenged it as total bunk, and was a total guess but remarkably close to what Carl Sagan later came up with.

    The sets were designed by set designers with no outside input, but when NASA scientists and techs toured behind the scenes of Star Trek, the constantly remarked how similar many of the set’s features were like stuff NASA had or was developing.

    And there is a natural “transparent” aluminum… Saphire. So it’s maybe not much of a stretch to a sci-fi writer that a thick, clear, tough, transparent aluminum might be possible.

    1. kevin says:

      If you read the article, the aluminum oxynitride was around 5 years before the movie was made. Also much of the “prophetic” stuff in star trek was in scifi novels and stories years before.

    2. K.S. Williams says:

      I always thought the library chips were like the 3.5″ floppy disks.

    3. Jerry Lannen says:

      …and cell phones!!
      I would have to ask Shatner if he was calling “Spock” If I could stop laughing!
      “Why…Yes… I……………………am.”
      loved them all, (actually met James Doohan!)

  14. GADGETS | Pearltrees says:

    […] All that work pays off. AlON can do amazing things. Here, for instance, a 1.6″ thick AlON plate successfully resists a huge, powerful .50 AP bullet that smashes easily through more than twice that thickness of conventional laminated glass armor, with plenty of energy left over to extremely kill a plastic mannequin head. It’s expensive, of course, and so generally reserved for high-performance applications, especially in military fields. AlON is manufactured by Massachusetts-based Surmet Corporation for use in armored windows, lenses for battlefield optics, and “seeker domes,” which are the clear round windows covering the sensor heads on the business ends of many missiles. MAKE […]

  15. Craig Newswanger says:

    Oops! Scotty got his physics wrong. The volume of water has nothing to do with it. It’s the height of the water column.

    1. Jon says:

      Maybe he was concerned with the strength of the floor :)

    2. Seton Schiraga says:

      Wow. Can’t believe it took a month for anyone to point this out!! thanks Craig. Maybe star trek’s graphic designers were great, but their engineering was not! (OK, i’m totally trolling with that last sentence).

    3. BC says:

      Scotty gave partial dimensions (in feet) so I imagine the guy just did the math in his head to calculate the lateral pressure at the bottom of the column. Remember, there are two types of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data

  16. Southwest says:

    Of course if HAD to be transparent. Otherwise they could have used any plate metal out of a scrap yard.

    1. robert says:

      LOL. How else could they have there own whale tank and to bev able to watch the wales

  17. RobC says:

    I never really understood why it HAD to be transparent…i mean they weren’t constructing a permanent Sea World exhibit that would house George & Gracie (the whales’ names) for years. I suppose it’s more humane but for that amount of trouble?

    Anyway, does this new substance block cellular signals as bad as aluminum? If so we may want to keep our gorilla glass for a while.

  18. Conundum says:

    Nice, probably crazy expensive though.

    I never quite understood why no-one makes copper sheet, grown via electroplating with embedded optical fibres?
    Would make for nice outdoor sculptures with an LED embedded within the grown copper which acts as a nice little heatsink.

    I’ve seen transparent concrete demoed before, essentially the same idea.
    Just my $0.02 worth.

  19. badaztek says:

    Rest in peace James Doohan, yes, but did you see notice the computer Scotty was working on was an Apple Macintosh, RIP Steve Jobs

  20. Kevin E. Go says:

    I love that line: “A keyboard, how quaint!” I realize I’ve been misquoting it, saying “Ach! How primative!” …but may way DOES sound better with a Scottish accent!

  21. Poetry Thesis Musings says:

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  22. Anton Christopher McInerney says:

    It would be interesting to compare the matrix materials of the dome structures in ruin found on the Moon & Mars with this formula . We definitely need domes for infrastructure that on earth or any planet can sink beneath the earth during a solar event or other catastrophe.

  23. lukey says:

    we’ve manufactured transparent aluminium for years, … its called industrial Sapphire and is used to make lenses, watch crystal faces and so forth

    1. Sean Ragan says:

      Yes, and no. Yes, sapphire is a transparent aluminum compound. And no, this is not sapphire.

  24. Shannon Larratt is Zentastic › Freakin’ Friday says:

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  25. Captain, There Be Whales!: Scotty’s Clear Aluminum Now Available « Affordable Futurist says:

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  28. Initia Sur says:

    […] Transparent Aluminum Transparent aluminum starts out as a pile of white aluminum oxynitride powder. That powder gets packed into a rubber mold in the rough shape of the desired part, and subjected to a procedure called isostatic pressing, in which the mold is compressed in a tank of hydraulic fluid to 15,000 psi, which mashes the AlON into a grainy “green body.” The grainy structure is then fused together by heating at 2000 °C for several days. The surface of the resulting part is cloudy, and has to be mechanically polished to make it optically clear. […]

  29. Brad says:

    Scotty would hvae been proud! (Want a minute) They DID go BACK IN TIME!!!!!!!

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  32. BC says:

    I could have sworn that “transparent aluminum” was mentioned in Star Trek before 1986… I’m sure the role-playing game from FASA mentioned it, and that was first published in 1982. I just can’t put my finger on WHERE it may have first appeared.

    1. BC says:

      Ah, someone claims that transparent aluminum first appeared in the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica, so that pushes it back a little bit…

  33. trek fan says:

    Hello computer.

  34. Haber says:

    It also just will -not- burn and is quite chemically inert. You’re at the bottom of the amazing thermite reaction – the oxygens really like being with the aluminum.

  35. son dakika spor haberleri says:

    was mentioned in Star Trek before 1986… I’m sure the role-playing game from FASA mentioned it, and that was first published in 1982. I just can’t put my finger on WHERE it may have first appeared.

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  39. Leif Nielsen says:

    ACTUALLY, blah blah blah blah blah Star Trek, blah blah blah blah Klingon…Star Fleet blah blah blah blah.

    Case in point: blah blah blah blah and you can’t say that blah blah blah happened because blah blah didn’t even exist until blah blah blah.

    That’s what I don’t get about blah blah blah, always screwing up the details and blah blah blah cuz it’s the details that count blah blah blah Star Trek.

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  45. Sargonarhes says:

    But doesn’t the technology for transparent steel already exist?

  46. Lon Grover says:

    I’m courious, can the AlON also be made leaded to provide ‘some’ protection from solar radiation in space? A book I am writing relies on leaded acrylic to do the job.

  47. Aerographite-The Worlds Lightest Material - Page 2 says:

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  48. Randy Patton says:

    This was SUCH a cool article. I never dreamed that “transparent aluminum” would be a fact in my lifetime. Thanks Sean Ragan! :)

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  52. reads-the-waters says:

    you earthlings are quite amusing and lively. we all love you– vicariously from a distance of course. maybe we can get together after your great mutation when you get out of the rut.
    clue: gravity is acceleration. best, galactic center.

  53. RobThom says:

    This would go good with my 3d printer.

    I’m gonna print out a clear tec-9.

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  78. Sam A. says:

    Too bad the “Reboot” of Star Trek has made ALL of the old mythology obsolete and part of an alternate universe we’ll never EVER see again. Voyage, DS9, TNG – all can’t happen now because someone has an ego that just HAD to be bigger than Rodenberry’s.

    Sad, how they were allowed to destroy the show…

    1. Sam A. says:

      Make that VOYAGER. Stupid spell check.

    2. Kaziarl says:

      Right… destroyed… Men in black SUV’s even came to my house and confiscated my old… oh wait… never mind.

      As for the alternate reality issue, this isn’t the first time. The writers have rewritten trek history many times, and each time it’s a travesty, a horror, death to Star Trek… until the next time it happens. It would be wonderful if us trek fans weren’t such drama queens.

    3. gotindrachenhart says:

      As I’ve tried to tell some friends on this topic. It isn’t gone, it’s just….still over there :) Though, I do agree with you about a certain director’s ego. Just like the transformers movies….seen all of them…have YET to see a single Transformer!

  79. Transparent Aluminum « Morning Cup O' Joe says:

    […] via MAKEzine.com […]

  80. Philo Beddoe says:

    Sean,

    What a pity,that you are not enthusiastic enough about Star Trek,to realize that this story took place in the 23rd century,not the 24th century.

  81. allandnn says:

    would have been nice for some one yet to post how to make white aluminum oxynitride powder included

    1. Quentin Tubb says:

      oxynitride sounds like oxygen and nitrogen are involved, if you have ever seen white powder forming on aluminum, that is aluminum oxide, so im guessing they take that and add nitrogen to it somehow
      its just a guess, i only went to school to eat my lunch

      1. Nico Prime Ferrise says:

        or take a NO of some configuration and mix that with Aluminum powder…

        I want to know how to fix this stuff if/when it gets damaged. We could use it on the moon or for space shuttles and stations or subs… Lot of scientific applications

      1. allandnn says:

        I appreciate it

  82. Bubba Smith says:

    Windows in subs

    1. ProphetZarquon says:

      There’s even a mesh screen that lets air through but not water.
      Screen door on a submarine!

  83. goodgameempire hack says:

    goodgameempire hack

    Transparent Aluminum | MAKE

  84. Wilz Sosa says:

    Yet another tech partly influenced (knowledge about it) by Star Trek, although it was already experimented years before the ST IV, I would have never dreamed that something like this could even exist in our time, Or can it? Sean, you just gained a follower,…good stuff man.

  85. Quatloo - Not Just Another Sci-Fi Altcoin » QTL » Bitcoin Mafia says:

    […] phones, video conferencing, needleless innoculators, even transparent aluminum (yes, that’s a real thing now) were all technologies that were birthed in the Star Trek universe. They even introduced the […]

  86. DanFrederiksen says:

    the one in the movie is a combination of alu, silver and hydrogen.

    1. James Cannon says:

      the one in the movie is based upon the simple sciences that the movie goers can comprehend.

    2. ProphetZarquon says:

      In the movie it’s made of aluminum, silver, & oxygen: Al3 06 Ag2

  87. Transparent Aluminum | w3.THERMOSAS.com says:

    […] Transparent Aluminum – MAKE | DIY projects, how-tos, and …> Those of you, um, enthusiastic enough to remember star trek iv may recall the scene embedded above. if not, let me set up the clip: the crew of the enterprise has. Source : Transparent aluminum – make | diy projects, how-tos, and […]

  88. Is "Military Grade Aluminum" the new billet aluminum? says:

    […] know if this is real at all yet a lot comes from our imaginations and are made into reality. Enjoy Transparent Aluminum | Make: I hate those Engineers at Ford for making this truck with the Aluminum body they are nit wits! Why […]

  89. David Bennett says:

    Predicted in a Star Trek movie? Nonsense! Everyone knows this technology was provided by the Roswell Aliens who are still in captivity in Studio 54 (they are disco maniacs!)

  90. תמונה ראשונה מ-Axanar, סופסוף אלומיניום שקוף, מתקרבים לפלוטו ויומן צפיה | סטארבייס972 | The Last Outpost says:

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  91. Joseph Brown says:

    So nobody is going to talk about amorphous metallic glasses? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_metal

  92. Peter Coene says:

    so, its prohibitively expensive NOW… But in the future is its price come down enough that I can have a motorcycle helmet made of the stuff?

  93. Terry Zinser says:

    Science!

  94. Han Rasmussen says:

    Transparent aluminum in Star Trek predates the fourth movie and might predate the movies themselves. I remember reading it in novels and tech manuals long before it showed up in STIV, it wasn’t first introduced there.

  95. The Wonders of Transparent Aluminum | Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers | levin's linkblog says:

    […] Sourced through Scoop.it from: makezine.com […]

  96. Night128 says:

    ALON, not AION.

    1. Sean Ragan says:

      Nope. Look at your periodic table. The symbol for aluminum is upper-case-A-lower-case-l. Sorry if it’s typographically inconvenient for you. Don’t take your serif issues out on me.

  97. Agito Wanijima says:

    This article is poorly written. Pity the author can’t be more ‘enthusiastic’ about ‘enthusiastic’ things on a ‘enthusiastic’ online magazine.

  98. SpaceMunkie says:

    Transparent Aluminum has been around for ages – its called sapphire.

  99. Transparent aluminum: science fiction now a reality – Materialist says:

    […] Transparent Aluminum probably seems like an impossible feat for those of us who are used to the ordinary metallic. A look at the process will shed some light on just how different the transparent stuff really is. First, the transparent aluminum starts out as a white powdery substance called alumni onxnytride powder. Next, the powder is packed into a mold for whatever shape is needed. From there, a process starts called isostatic pressing which is where the mold with packed powder is compressed in a tank of hydraulic fluid which causes the powder within the mold to become grainy and green. The grainy material is then heated to 2000⁰C for several days. Finally, the nearly transparent material is born, but must be polished to appear completely transparent.  The end result is a see-through and extremely strong material. […]

  100. Space the final frontier? – tooinnovative . . . says:

    […] we found Transparent Aluminum can we find force fields as well? Searching for “3M static electricity force field Greenville […]

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  102. O FUTURO QUE NÓS QUEREMOS VIVER É__–_? – Update or Die! says:

    […] onde tudo o que era e o que é analógico passa a ser digital. Desde a criação, por exemplo, de alumínio e madeira transparentes até o desenvolvimento de sensores que leem nosso cérebro e inteligências […]

  103. Materials & Structure – Extending Humanity says:

    […] in the habitat, as that structure has been thoroughly tested and works effectively in space. Transparent aluminum should be researched as a potential additional layer of protection that could be added to the […]

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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