Inventor Of A New Substance Looking For Uses For It

April 02, 1993|By Kirk Saville, Newport News Daily Press.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Ricky Campisi has a grand vision for his invention, a substance that absorbs radio waves and turns them into heat.

"What I'd like to see is one in every garage," Campisi said.

What would they be used for? "That's a good question," he said.

Campisi, a scientist at a subatomic physics lab being built in this southeastern Virginia city, has patented a new substance that will be used to help control the precision beam of electrons at the heart of the lab's experiments.

But Campisi is seeking to transfer the material, officially known as aluminum nitrate glassy carbon composite, beyond the world of nuclear physics.

He ticks off a few possible uses: Put a piece of the substance into a microwave oven for a few minutes and you'd have an object that could keep coffee hot for hours. Coat a car with it and maybe you could slip by police radar.

"These are idiotic thoughts," Campisi said. "But why not let our imaginations run wild? People probably thought Teflon was an idiotic idea. I'm not saying this is a new Teflon, but maybe there are some uses for it."

When the physics lab is completed in 1994, it will use radio waves to accelerate electrons to nearly the speed of light. The high-speed electrons will then slam into atomic targets. By studying the collisions, scientists hope to discover how the atom is held together.

Three-inch triangular pieces of Campisi's invention, which he developed with a team of other researchers, are placed inside the metal vessels that accelerate the electrons. When radio waves are pumped into the vessels, the waves push and pull the electrons around the accelerator.

For the process to work, the radio waves must be at a precise wavelength. Other wavelengths would destroy the beam.

Campisi's material absorbs the unwanted waves, turning them into heat. The key, Campisi said, lies in microscopic carbon spheres embedded in the material. When the radio waves strike the material, they travel between the balls until their energy is transferred into heat.

The material had to be able to withstand the lab's extreme conditions. The accelerator is chilled to less than 400 degrees below zero. Because the beam travels in a vacuum, the material can't release dust.

And the triangles had to be compact enough to fit in the space reserved for the metal vessels. Other materials that absorb waves were too large to be practical.

While Campisi isn't sure what else the substance can be used for, he's interested in finding out. He said he has already come up with one potential use.

"People told me it looks like a good paperweight," he said.