Star Trek Comes Closer Yet – Transparent Aluminum

While we may not be living in a Star Trek world yet, we’re getting there.

Smartphones, 3D Printers, voice-activated computer functionality, sliding Star Trek doors. Need I say more?

Well now there’s another one for the Star Trek record books. According to the scientists working on it, although they haven’t cracked the code on metallic transparent aluminum, they have done it with ceramics.

The material, aluminum oxynitride, known as AION, is four times harder than fused silica glass, 85 percent as hard as sapphire and stable up to a temperature of 1,200C.

At 1.6 inches thick, it is strong enough to stop .50 caliber bullets, which can easily penetrate more than twice that thickness of conventional laminated glass armor.

And yes, you can see through it!

You can read more here.