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Definitely yes. Gold is surprisingly transparent for a metal. Famously, gold plating is used on astronaut helmet visors, at 200 nm thickness - i.e. ~1200 atoms
by semi-extrinsic 3y ago
Definitely yes. Gold is surprisingly transparent for a metal. Famously, gold plating is used on astronaut helmet visors, at 200 nm thickness - i.e. ~1200 atoms thick.
- twic 3y agoIs it more transparent than other metals? How transparent is a 200 nm film of iron or aluminium?
- Tuna-Fish 3y agoNot transparent at all on visible light wavelengths. Light transmission in metals obeys the skin effect, which means that AC fields (such as the fields in light) do not like to penetrate deep into the material, and the skin depth for visible light wavelengths in most metals is expressed in individual nanometers.
- djtango 3y agoTIL! Thank you for sharing - love me my chemistry after all... For those who are curious: it fends off harmful EM radiation https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/hm2.html#:~:text=A%20thin%20layer%20of%20gold,resistant%20and%20static%2Dfree%20performance https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/hm2.html#:~:text=A%20th....
- manmal 3y agoIt is also used as a coating for window panes, as it‘s great at reflecting infrared radiation (reducing heat loss). My father‘s house has such windows.
- beretguy 3y agoAre those windows expensive?
- spiderfarmer 3y agoYes, but mostly because of the manufacturing process (requires a vacuum).
- formerly_proven 3y agoStealth aircraft also use gold-plated canopies to a) contain emissions from the cockpit to the cockpit b) reflect incoming radiation of a well-defined surface instead of whatever mess is inside the cockpit.