Probing the Reaction Zone of Nanolaminates at ∼μs Time and ∼μm Spatial Resolution

Reactive nanolaminates are a high-energy-density configuration for energetics that have been widely studied for their tunable energy release rates. In this study, we characterized Al/CuO nanolaminate reactions with different fuel/oxidizer ratios and bilayer thicknesses using both macro- and microscale high-speed imaging/pyrometry. Under microscopic imaging, we observe significant corrugation (the ratio of the total geometrical length of the flame to the width of the sample in the direction perpendicular to propagation) of the flame, which can increase the reaction surface area by as much as a factor of 3. This in turn manifests itself as an increase in the global burn rate (total nanolaminate film length/total burn time). We find that the global burn rate can be predicted as the product of the microburn rate (local vector burn rate at the microscopic scale) and the corrugation. These corrugation effects primarily impact fuel-rich conditions, resulting in higher global burn rates. We find that the reaction zone has a thickness of similar to 150 mu m. Finally, we present a 3D rendering of what we believe the reaction zone looks like, based on the results from in-operando observation and SEM cross-sectional imaging.