Blacker Than Black

Ahhhh ha..... no one can call anyone black if you can see the bugger, says the boffins at Rens­se­laer Pol­y­tech­nic In­sti­tute in Troy, N.Y..

"All ma­te­ri­als re­flect some light. Or­di­nary black paint re­flects 5 to 10 per­cent. The dark­est ma­nmade ma­te­ri­al, pri­or to the Lin group’s discov­ery, re­flected just un­der a fifth of a per­cent, Lin said. The new ma­te­ri­al has a to­tal re­flective in­dex of less than a twen­ti­eth of a per­cent—in total, 0.045 per­cent, he said.

Its unique properties are due to “the loosely-packed for­est of car­bon nan­o­tubes, which is full of nano­scale [roughly ato­mic-sized] gaps and holes to col­lect and trap light,” Lin said. “Such a nan­otube ar­ray not only re­flects light weak­ly, but al­so ab­sorbs light strongly. These com­bined fea­tures make it an ide­al can­di­date for one day real­iz­ing a super-black ob­ject.”"

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