Can you purify a metal oxide with a laser? Is there any metal oxide (like aluminum oxide, titanium dioxide etc.), that can be put into a vacuum and hit with a heat source, like a laser and be converted into pure metal with a slightly weaker vacuum having oxygen in it?
From my understanding pure metals tend to oxidize at higher temperatures, however, since &quot;nature hates a vacuum&quot;, is it possible to use heat to do the opposite process by providing enough energy to break it's chemical bonds and then the oxygen joins the vacuum leaving the metal behind?
If this is impossible. Is there another way to use a laser to purify metals? If heat doesn't do the trick even in a unique environment, perhaps is it possible to focus ionizing radiation to essentially perform electrolysis on it?
Again, this might not work. So one last idea. For example, aluminum oxide and titanium dioxide are dielectrics. If you were to hit one side with an electron beam from a cathode ray tube to negatively charge one surface and use ionizing radiation on the other side could you then create a chemical reaction to purify the metal?
this is an interesting question and I will answer it a bit differently.

There is a well known analysis technique in materials chemistry called ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) where you have a sample, and using an inductive electric field, the plasma of the sample containing ions of the elements present is created. This is then passed thorugh a mass spectrometer to know the elemental composition of a material synthesised. It is one of the best known techniques for elemental analysis.

However, the idea of using ICP-MS like technique for purification of metal oxides is novel to me. Instead of induction to introduce electric field and rip apart the electrons from the atoms, you can achieve the same using a laser. The rest idea is same.
However, you can try it, and in case you design an instrument and get a publication for the same, kindly let me know here. I will look forward to it.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductively_coupled_plasma_mass_spectrometry


Kindly contact me in comments in case you have any questions.
Stay Safe. With greetings from India. जय हिन्द. Jai hind.