Session Details
Session 10: Light Metals Processing
Abstract Number:
88
Comparative study of commercial and lab-made blackening product with historical results, looking at deposition process parameters to enhance absorbance of light
Topics:
Aerospace / Defense / Military
General Surface Finishing
Energy in the form of photons are transmitted from objects across eons of time and space. The emptiness of space allows many of these photons to reveal its geographic source, an astronomical fingerprint left from the history of the cosmos. In our relatively crowded solar system, locally generated photons create noise that can alter or mask an astronomical fingerprint. Photon collectors are designed to maximize the signal to noise ratio by filtering stray energy sources from the detector and the surface coating properties have a significant role in whether a photon is absorbed or reflected.
A black copper oxide coating has been used for space applications because it forms a textured black film that can trap many of the incident photons, converting them to thermal energy, while others are reflected. The Ebonol-C product has been used since the 1950’s as a copper blackening agent, but has been discontinued by the manufacturer, so we makeup the chemical bath from common laboratory chemicals. In this study, we look at black oxide coating deposition factors on an aluminum substrate that affect the efficiency of the surface coating to absorb incident photons.