Scientists Have Developed a Material So Dark That You Can't See It 238
gbjbaanb writes A British company is developing a new material that's so black it absorbs all but 0.035 percent of the visual light, making it the darkest material ever created. Of course, apart from making album covers, it conducts heat 7 times better than copper and is 10 times stronger than steel. "The nanotube material, named Vantablack, has been grown on sheets of aluminium foil by the Newhaven-based company. While the sheets may be crumpled into miniature hills and valleys, this landscape disappears on areas covered by it. 'You expect to see the hills and all you can see it's like black, like a hole, like there's nothing there. It just looks so strange,' said Ben Jensen, the firm's chief technical officer.
I was able to sneak into their laboratories (Score:5, Funny)
And I took a photo [e-try.com] of the material.
I was able to sneak into their laboratories (Score:2, Informative)
Very funny. Here are the real pictures: (maybe it's not to late to add this link to the article?)
http://sageofquay.blogspot.nl/
Re:I was able to sneak into their laboratories (Score:5, Informative)
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That's a link to the photos without the blogspam..
Don't think of me as ungrateful, but I'd rather read correspondence from a thousand nigerian princes (with p3ni$) problems from now until the day I die than click on a link to the Mail.
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yeah yeah, just look at the pictures, no need to read the stories of Nigerian princes being allowed to remain in the UK after scamming little old ladies of their life savings, because it would violate their human right to a family life.
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Also the Daily Wail.
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tell me, I read (yes) the Daily Mail article, read the linked one to the Independant and then submitted with the DM one as it was better, even though it had been sourced from the other paper's site.
Though samzenpus did a good job rewriting my "na, they'll never accept it" sub, he really shouldn't have lost that link :(
Re:I was able to sneak into their laboratories (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I was able to sneak into their laboratories (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure what is stranger, the material or the Daily Mail publishing something that appears to be factual and informative....
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And here is the reality; for a coverage of this stuff in a flat finish, it will take around 25 lb. of product to make a 30 gallon batch of paint. You really don't want to add any Talcum for flat as it will ruin color, no bentonite for viscosity, probably needs to be in a silicone to avoid yellowing of the resin over time. IOW, this is going to be an expensive pain in the ass to turn into a coating and there is no guaranteeing applying it will be a picnic either.
Re:I was able to sneak into their laboratories (Score:5, Funny)
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"Not only were their colors and patterns uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid."
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Re:I was able to sneak into their laboratories (Score:5, Funny)
I've actually managed to find a picture of it being used as intended.
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portable_Hole_8289.jpg [tvtropes.org]
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galactic hyper-hearse (Score:5, Funny)
It's the weird colour scheme that freaks me. Every time you try to operate one of these weird black controls, which are labeled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to let you know you've done it. Hey, what is this, some kind of galactic hyper-hearse?
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That's what happens when you try to steal Hotblack Desiato's stunt ship...
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It's the weird colour scheme that freaks me. Every time you try to operate one of these weird black controls, which are labeled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to let you know you've done it. Hey, what is this, some kind of galactic hyper-hearse?
You kids with your fancy book references just make me laugh. When I think of HHGTTG, I think of the radio plays, with Peter Jones as the book, and the Haggunenon Admiral's flagship.
Ahh .. the good old days.
Now git off my lawn.
Re:galactic hyper-hearse (Score:4, Informative)
That was my thought as well. The more appropriate quote, too, was not regarding the interior of the ship, which was merely black (and lots of it), but the exterior of the ship. Ford's line before the entered the ship - "It's so black - you can hardly even make out its shape. Light just falls into it." - seemed a much better fit for this story.
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I went for the Spinal Tap album cover and general heavy metal first, but HHGTTG was the obvious next place to go.
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+1 for serendipitous comment threads, also I'm reading the book to my kids for their bedtime story.
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+1 for reading to your kids
+1 for combining the two! How old are your kids and how are they liking the story so far? Have they tried reaching for their tattered copies of the Guide yet for clarification on things?
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As is Ford Prefect, which was the name of a Ford car in the UK (1930s-1960s). It's not, as most Americans think, a purposeful mis-spelling of Perfect.
It was written for UK
Yea right (Score:2)
Bet it can be seen just fine in the far infrared.
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it'll do a good job on IF/UV too I'm sure given it's based on trapping photons bouncing around within tunnels so they can't escape,
the effects are probably because the size of the nanotubes are on the order of the wavelength of visible light... I would not be surprised if it wasn't particularly impressive for IR/UV. SOURCE: MY BRAIN
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The summary does state '0.035 percent of the visual light'... it'll do a good job on IF/UV too I'm sure given it's based on trapping photons bouncing around within tunnels so they can't escape, though probably not as low a percentage.
While it might do a good job at absorbing it must still emit blackbody photons.
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If they can grow it on Aluminum foil, perhaps they can grow it on an Aluminum block, with cooling passages.
300K (Score:2)
While it might do a good job at absorbing it must still emit blackbody photons.
True, but almost nothing at 300K, and almost none of that in the *near* infra-red.
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If it's absorbing all that light, it's close to being a perfect black body and so it's going to emit infrared radiation.
It's like, how much more black could this be? (Score:5, Funny)
And the answer is none. None more black.
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It could be 350ppm more black.
Prior Art (Score:2)
The helicopters hovering over my house.
Disaster Area (Score:5, Funny)
I hear a Mr. Hotblack Desiato wants to buy all of it. The material and the team that invented it... He also might buy the whole solar system while he's at it.
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I hear a Mr. Hotblack Desiato wants to buy all of it. The material and the team that invented it... He also might buy the whole solar system while he's at it.
I'm sorry, the Autarch has bought it all up for the Society of Seekers for Truth and Penitence to make fuligrin cloaks.
Larry Niven! (Score:2)
So it's like staring into hyperspace?
Here's a better article with actual photos (Score:5, Informative)
Daily Mail [dailymail.co.uk]
Re:Here's a better article with actual photos (Score:4, Funny)
better article
Daily Mail
This material appears to be so black that it made me black out and wake up in a crazy alternate universe where a Daily Mail article isn't considered to be absolutely terrible.
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Well, it is better than the article linked in the summary.
The daily mail actually has pictures of the stuff.
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When I clicked on it there was provocative picture of a 16 year old in the sidebar. Technically legal in the UK but it still creeps me out to think of the old men at the Daily Mail admiring it.
Now I feel dirty for giving them advertising revenue. At least I had AdBlock turned on.
Prior art - Wile E. Coyote's portable holes. (Score:4, Funny)
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Not to mention _The And and the Aardvark_:
"I hate you, instant hole!" the Blue Aardvark
My ex-wife (Score:2)
I think her soul is made out of this material.
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Great sex doesn't require a bright soul.
Bigger blackness (Score:2)
Headline wrong, not invisible. (Score:3)
If this stuff where painted around the entrance of a curved tunnel and sun light shone on to it, if you you could only see the painted material then you would most 100% definitively see sunlight shining off of it.
Bright daylight being 10,000 foot candles and 1 candle light being something that we can see, 0.035% = 2,857 to 1 ratio.
Re:Headline wrong, not invisible. (Score:4, Informative)
Handy in places where reflections are bad though such as telescopes and high end camera internals perhaps.
Unfortunately only very rich ninjas will be able to afford this material. (Pirates will just steal or copy it of course)
Re:Headline wrong, not invisible. (Score:4, Informative)
As long as the manufacturing can scale and it does offer the advantages we assume, I would expect in in £300 cameras with 5 years, maybe even cheaper. Look at Gorilla Glass, once they found a market and could scale, now everyone uses it for smartphones.
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I was thinking of heatsinks - conduct better than copper (no doubt cheaper once manufacturing gets sorted out) and your shiny copper heatpipes will be replaced with not-shiny black ones that you can't see.
The said telescopes would be suitable for this, particularly expensive ones they put in space.
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Maybe they'll use it [imdb.com] if they reboot "2001: A Space Odyssey." [youtube.com]
Paging Hagunenon Admiral (Score:2)
Your Flagship is ready after its respray.
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But now he's quite incapable of enjoying it.
I see (Score:2)
Sold! (Score:2)
I imagine it would also be appropriate for the Batmobile.
My Ex will be happy about this (Score:2)
Since she went all Goth, she claimed she was only wearing black till they invented something darker.
She'll wallow in this.
So when can I buy a cape made of it? (Score:2)
As I recall, the protagonist in "The Shadow of The Torturer" wears a costume and cape made of a perfect black material so that all you see when he walks towards you is an irregular shifting black shape of perfect darkness.
With an axe, and eyes.
It was a good book. The rest of the series? Eh.
I can imagine that (Score:2, Insightful)
It is so happens that in computer graphics 3d object can be flat shaded, as a uniform color. In this case it is impossible to distinquish some characteristics and the object looks unnatural. So I believe I totally understand how the object should look. however we are used to unrealistic stuff in PC screen, however wrong looking objects in real life would be something really interesting.
Inside of cameras (Score:2, Interesting)
This is going to be useful for the insides of optical systems, lens hoods, and such. Other than that, probably not that significant.
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I didn't research so forgive my ignorance, but if they might be able to produce this cheaply and durably; having a couple of m2 of it on your roof might be great for capturing solar energy; especially given it's heat conducting properties. It would look weird though.
That said, didn't we have a similar article on /. quite a while ago where they showed off something similar (might have been it reflected (quite) a bit more) yet I haven't read/heard anything from it after that...
Re:Inside of cameras (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't research so forgive my ignorance
It gets this property from its fine surface structure, which is a forest of tubes. Incoming light has to be reflected many times before it gets back out, so a black material is effectively made even less reflective. It's the optical-scale version of the pointed absorbers used in anechoic chambers. [wikipedia.org]
It probably is not going to retain its blackness when exposed to water, dirt, or wear. Superhydrophobic coatings such as Never Wet [rustoleum.com] have the same problem - they work because they're composed of tiny points, so droplets of liquid don't have a surface they can grab. But after some wear, the effect stops working. (See any of the many "NeverWet fails" videos on YouTube.)
This is likely to be great for protected environments, such as inside optical systems. It should be useful for optical sensors in space, too. But it's probably an inherently fragile surface. That limits its uses. (The "stronger than steel" probably refers to the individual carbon nanotubes, not the bulk material.)
This s a problem with a lot of surface chemistry stuff touted as "nanomaterials". They have interesting surface properties, but the surfaces are fragile, because they're some very thin surface layer with an unusual structure. If you protect that structure with some coating, you lose the effect.
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Other than that, probably not that significant.
Is it possible that you perhaps haven't considered every single possible application this might have?
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To the people who make optical systems, lens hoods, and such... I'd imagine it's pretty significant. Not every discovery needs to world changing to be significant.
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That hot water system is not going to be better than common vacuum insulated solar boilers because you lose a lot of heat to the air. You might be able to upgrade the common vacuum insulated solar boilers with the stuff (the vacuum insulation would also eliminate wear and tear on the fragile surface). However that would only be an option if the price is low. Current solutions reflect less than 5% (they seem to be glossy) so the maximum gain you are going to get is 5%.
This is more for situations where the re
2001 (Score:2)
Build a monolith covered withthe stuff. Sounds about how it is described in the books.
Looks like they'll get rich (Score:5, Funny)
This is the sort of material which could be used for artificial hearts for lawyers, bankers, and politicians.
But does it come in White? (Score:2)
Paint for a room (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine the surreal experience of opening a door to a room painted floor to ceiling with vantablack and only a small area rug serving as an "island" with a wing chair, ottoman and side table with table lamp floating in space, I can only wonder if you'd get a floating sensation while sitting in the chair.
Another, more cynical part of me suspects that our Government's Intelligence community is already planning on creating such rooms to "enhance" interrogation or make solitary confinement more solitary.
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A windowless room with a shielded door is waaay cheaper, and at least as effective.
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Some tan dude in John Lennon glasses keeps asking me to select between 2 pills there
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OK. So there are actually 51 shades of gray.
2 for 1! (Score:2)
That can't be good for your eyes.
Blacker than the blackest black, times infinity.
I'm torn... (Score:2)
Do I make the His Dark Materials joke, or the fuligin joke?
Practical applications? (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally! (Score:2)
How long before Neil Gaiman has a t-shirt made of it?
Prior Art (Score:2)
Mick Jagger developed this in the '60s, before he became a specialist in historical cryptography :
Paint it Black [youtube.com]
Not dark enough (Score:2)
My evil black cat is far darker than that. She is a sink of evil, absorbing all light in a room. If she were much blacker I'd suspect I'd have a tame black hole living with me before, jumping up onto my bed, waking me up to be petted, and then proceeding to try to bite me. Things just don't get blacker than that!
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Your cat lets you pet it? Mine is eviler.
Chew Toy (really the dogs cat) just bites me and demands food. When I get to hell, I expect him to be there to torment me.
My black cat is a pussycat in comparison to the red devil.
Solar panels (Score:5, Interesting)
This could be really interesting to use in thermal solar panels (in layman terms: the ones for water heating, not the ones to get electricity). If it absorbs so much light, it's probably more efficient than other materials, and surely much more than black paint. This could raise the efficiency of thermal panels to near 95%, so I hope this becomes a thing.
I wouldn't cover a car with it, though. I don't want to experience a solar oven first-hand.
"The Shadow and the Flash," Jack London, 1903 (Score:2)
Science-fiction comes true. Sort of. Jack London (better known for "The Call of the Wild") published a story in 1903 entitled "The Shadow and the Flash," online here. [sonoma.edu] The plot in part turns on the concept of a perfectly black pigment. It is a good story--much better than you'd guess from a summary. As to the optics London was either confused or exercising creative license:
"'Color is a sensation," he was saying.... 'Without light, we can see neither colors nor objects themselves. All objects are black in th
Military applications (Score:2)
7.5x that of copper (Score:2)
Man, I'd love that stuff cooling my LEDs! The tiniest bit of airflow over something like that would be all one needs to keep even intense arrays like the MK-R cool.
I wonder if this could be grown on the backside of an MCPCB, negating the need for a heat sink and allowing just a fan over it to cool.
Spinal Tap (Score:2)
Fuligin... (Score:2)
Nice (Score:2)
Can I use it to line the inner surface of my telescope?
It'd killed them to get a video of a green laser.. (Score:2)
Apple and Samsung handheld designers... (Score:2)
Black box in the Gents (Score:2)
Sanity check? (Score:2)
That said, I fully believe that an end on view of a stack of nanotubes should be extremely dark.
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Google isn't perfect and this is a press release. Give it a couple of days. There's lots of hype around the Farnborough air show this week.
Fuligin! (Score:2)
Or as Gene Wolfe called it in The Book of the New Sun, "Fuligin, the color that is darker than black." And since Wolfe didn't make up any new words, that means "fuligin" is a real word from some older time.
I wonder how safe it is ? (Score:2)
I get the feeling that if you were to brush those little tubes off of the surface they were grown on they'd make asbestos seem like candy floss in comparison!
The new black (Score:2)
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Happy now? [dailymail.co.uk]
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Wolfe even anticipated that the material would make folds, wrinkles and creases invisible, just as described in TFS.
I started re-reading The Book of the New Sun last week and there are numerous references to this aspect of cloth of fuligin, the color darker than black.