All articles tagged with #aluminum oxide
European researchers using LiDAR traced a SpaceX Falcon 9 first-stage re-entry, finding about 30 kilograms of lithium deposited in the upper atmosphere—ten times the normal daily input—alongside aluminum oxide. The event highlights potential shifts in atmospheric chemistry and pollution from rocket traffic as satellite constellations grow, with implications for ozone chemistry and ground-based astronomy.
A 2010 claim that an aluminum oxide/titanium oxide nanolaminate could deliver a giant dielectric constant was later shown to be a measurement artifact caused by leakage paths in the first aluminum oxide layer formed during atomic layer deposition. The aluminum oxide layer didn’t grow evenly because the TMA precursor pulled oxygen from the underlying TiO2, creating weak spots. Once the process used ozone as the oxygen source, leakage was suppressed and the material behaved as a true insulator, highlighting that chemistry at a few atomic layers can be as decisive as thickness for reliable dielectrics.