Whether you are a seasoned pilot or new to aviation, one thing’s obvious - careening through the air, an aircraft requires the best possible safeguards against all odds both within and outside. Embarking on the obvious, US Air Force visions to have its jets equipped with 80-carat diamond-crusted windows. Diamonds for security may sound obnoxious, but given its physical strength and other physical properties, the diamond windows would protect the aircraft carrying high-powered microwave (HPM) emitters, used to destroy the enemy’s electrical systems, from harming the aircraft itself.
Diamond’s high thermal conductivity, its wide range transparency and its physical properties have put it in the league of the preferred material for the shielding, which is intended to protect the jets from weapons on board. The added bling would allow the HPMs to pass through the jets fuselage without harming or disrupting the systems on board.
The windows which will not only safeguard the aircraft against HPMs but also keep off other airborne dangers, would weigh about 15 and 17.5 grams, and measure at about 2.5-inches in thickness.
The diamonds used in the windows would be polycrystalline, comprising of many very thin diamonds and will be created by chemical vapor deposition i.e. spraying carbon atoms over a silicon substrate in high-pressure chambers and would take weeks to make the cut. Apollo Diamond or Gemesis could be the diamond making companies that would be contracted to supply the desired quality diamonds to the Air Force for the project.
Via: Discovery
