FLASH Laser Leads to Discovery of New State of Matter
Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 1:10 am
FLASH Laser Leads to Discovery of New State of Matter
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... eedfetcherLike a scene out of Star Trek, Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with important implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.
In this week’s Nature Physics an international team, led by Oxford University scientists, report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser ‘knocked out’ a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the metal’s crystalline structure. This turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.