Material that's metallic and glass-like but made from cement is NOT science fiction at Argonne National Laboratory

I read about this HERE in an article by Tona Kunz.

Science, you so crazy. Transparent aluminum sounded cool when I was a kid. Who
knew the stuff was actually real? After reading the article posted as a news release
on Argonne's site, I think I just crapped my pants. And for those of you too young to
know, this is a screen capture from Star Trek IV. That's Scotty on the left and Bones on
the right. Scotty is talking into a computer mouse, because he's not used to such
primitive technology. After all, he's the chief engineer of the Enterprise.

To paraphrase Tony's article, scientists have only this month unraveled a formula for turning liquid cement into liquid metal. I know, this sounds ridiculous, and I'm trying to wrap my head around this even as I jot this down for my blog. But I can't help but think of that scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when Scotty gives the secret to making transparent aluminum to a man in a Plexiglas plant. Best line from that movie (for the record) is: "THERE BE WHALES HERE!"

The process the scientists at Argonne discovered makes cement into a semi-conductor. If you're like me, you might ask "What does this mean?" and "How soon will I be able to take a transporter to and from work?" Well (unfortunately for us) there's no transporter applications yet. However, you're going to see it show up in your consumer electronics as thin films, protective coatings, and in the manufacture of computer chips. Here's a diagram of how thin films work in solar cells so you can better understand how your "cement" is going to look in the very near future:

Or if you aren't into solar panels, then how about a thin film laptop computer? Here's one in development from Cymbet Corporation using thin-film battery technology that's far superior to the clunky batteries in today's laptops. This laptop can be recharged thousands of times without ever seeing a depreciation in the time it stays charged (nice eh?), will retain its charge way better than the batteries you are using right now, will charge super fast, and doesn't have toxic chemicals to damage the environment. Imagine writing your next masterpiece on this baby.

This thing is a battery. Yeah, you read that right.

Computer chips made from cement? Yeah, it's happening. But why is it happening? Well, there's a need for materials that have resistance to corrosion (traditional metal is rather poor at resisting corrosion), that is less brittle than traditional glass (you'll be able to see through this cement), yet has conductivity, low energy loss in magnetic fields, and fluidity for ease of processing and molding. Cement can do all of this by a process called electron trapping. DISCLAIMER: I'm not going to go into what electron trapping is because, quite frankly, I can only barely grasp the concept myself.

Also, to make this stuff, they had to blast levitated cement with lasers until it melted and turned into liquid metal. You should read that last line again. THEY LEVITATED CEMENT AND BLASTED IT WITH LASERS UNTIL IT MELTED AND TURNED INTO LIQUID METAL. My reaction:

We don't just live in interesting times. We live in AMAZING times. Talk about all the fuel us science-fiction writers now have in our toolbox for genuine HARD science fiction stories...I'm truly blown away. Here's hoping that science somehow inspires you in your endeavors. Have a great Wednesday.

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