Transparent Aluminum is HERE

[zorgon]

Transparent Aluminum is HERE

Technology and Manufacturing Capabilities

ALON® or Aluminum Oxynitride is an amazing and unique transparent advanced ceramic that is polycrystalline (made from powder) with a cubic spinel crystal structure. In the popular media and in the Star Trek community, it is commonly referred to as Transparent Aluminum. Surmet is the only company globally, that manufactures ALON®.

Taking over the development of ALON® from a laboratory demonstration stage in 2002, Surmet is proud to announce the commercial availability of ALON® in large volumes and in really large sizes. Over the last 12 years, Surmet has invested large sums of monies to build up its vertically integrated optical ceramics manufacturing capability. Surmet gratefully acknowledges US DOD funding help in this accomplishment. Creating such a capability required a great deal of patience and attention to detail, and complete commitment, as the return on investment for new technology materials is a slow, uncertain  and painstaking endeavor.


18x35 ALON window

Today Surmet manufactures precision ALON® components with consistently high quality, in batches that are in tonnage quantities, and in increasing sizes and shape complexity. Surmet has capability to produce precisely finished ALON components and is the only supplier of monolithic windows as big as 18x35-inch and windows with engineered seams as large as 24x27-inch to the US Defense market.

http://www.surmet.com/technology/alon-optical-ceramics/

[The Seeker]

Time marches on: yesterdays's Sci-Fi becomes today's reality 

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home came out in 1986, with the idea of transparent aluminum, now this article linked above states that 16 years later it became a reality, 15 years ago...

Star Wars was released 40 years ago, so when are they going to tell us about the light sabers and phased plasma rifles?