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Scientists create Blackest material ever.
Quote:
Vantablack nanofabric: 'the new black' to end all new blacks?
A UK nanotech company has created what is said to be the world's blackest-ever material, made using carbon nanotubes. It's far from the first time something has been touted as the new black – but perhaps now there really can be none more black
Vantablack, a fabric for military and astronautical use created by Surrey NanoSystems, absorbs all but 0.035% of light that shines on it.
Vantablack is the new black. You haven't heard of it? It really is the new black, blacker than all previous blacks known to man, and the Guinness Book of Records. When you look at this new black, you see only a hole. If you were to wear a Little Vantablack Dress, people would see your hands poking out the ends of the sleeves, your legs below the hem, your neck and head – and the rest of you would appear two-dimensional. Total flatness is not the usual ambition of little black dresses, but this new material, which has been developed by British company Surrey NanoSystems, is intended for military and astronautical purposes, not sartorial ones.
The material is made of carbon nanotubes. "It grows very quickly," says Ben Jensen, the company's chief technical officer. "We grow the tubes like a field of carbon grass. The tubes are spaced apart. When a light particle hits the material, it gets between the tubes and bounces around, is absorbed and converted to heat. Light goes in, but it can't get back out."
Has Vantablack changed the way Jensen sees ordinary black? "We call this material super black," he says. Touch it and it feels like the metal it's grown upon.
"This is not a groundbreaking thing," says professor George Stylios at the school of textiles and design at Heriot-Watt university. "It's a progression of a group of scientists, of companies that try to manipulate materials to push the boundaries." He says they could also make a redder red and a bluer blue.
Jensen, incidentally, is already working on a blacker version of Vantablack.
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