Scientists Develop Material So Dark That You Can't See It

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Okay, the first question that pops into your mind is if it can’t be seen, how do you find it and the other question is didn’t the Weasley brothers already market this as Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder? :D The actual material absorbs almost all visual light and when viewed, by the human eye, it confuses the brain by the absence of light.

A British company has produced a "strange, alien" material so black that it absorbs all but 0.035 per cent of visual light, setting a new world record.
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I can only imagine how hot it gets... that is a lot of energy to disperse.

Also, NASA apparently did something similar a few years ago, but not at quite that level of absorption.
 
How is it for non-visible light? Not for stealth planes but what about solar panels? Thats a lot of energetic particles its absorbing.
 
you mean what mixture of cyan, magenta, and yellow (i.e. reflecting pigments)? RGB is for projecting and not so much reflecting.
 
sweet, so they basically made something really close to a true blackbody (at least at visible wavelengths, obviously not at other wavelengths since that energy has to go somewhere and that somewhere is making the object hotter.

This could be quite nifty for stealth purposes though, if you shine a spot light into a field at night you wouldn't have much reflection off it.
 
I totally want that for the walls of my theater room! My flat black paint just doesn't cut it.
 
16million colours is 8 bits, 256 shades per colour, a single bit represents approx 0.4% of the maximum.
To represent 0.035% of any colour, you need over 10 times the shades.
13 bits should do it, you need 39 bit colour minimum.
So a computer would have to be running 48bit colour to encode it.

No wonder the eye cant detect it lol.
 
Pair this material with that new 50cal self guiding round and ... FEAR the USA
 
This scene from the book popped in my head.

"The reason I'm having so much trouble flying this ship is because it's black. The walls are black, the floor is black, the console is black, the switches are black, the labels are little black letters printed on a black background, and when you press anything, a black light lights up in black to tell you you've done it." Ford Prefect - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
 
MysticRyuujin said:
Xrave said:
pics or gtfo
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Agree. Pics or it didn't happen.
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There is a picture of it about half way through the article. It says it was "grown" on some aluminum foil. My take is that the material is on the foil like a piece of silk, but the absorption of light is preventing any of the crinkles and valleys from appearing. I'm sure the picture doesn't do it justice, but even on my crappy work monitor my eyes were confused for a second.
 
Armenius said:
There is a picture of it about half way through the article. It says it was "grown" on some aluminum foil. My take is that the material is on the foil like a piece of silk, but the absorption of light is preventing any of the crinkles and valleys from appearing. I'm sure the picture doesn't do it justice, but even on my crappy work monitor my eyes were confused for a second.
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Is it now the most goth piece of aluminum foil?
 
I would love to have only a 1cm² of this... it must be freaking awesome to move a laser pointer to it and see it vanish like if it was a little hole with no end.
 
officer921 said:
I'm going to use this for my suit when I become Batman.
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This is old news. Waynetech released the patent for this years ago and that's why it's finally getting any kind of press now. The new Bat Suit absorbs all but 0.002% of light.

BTW, I'm Batman.
 
So how much light can this material absorb before it spontaneously combusts?
 
'For if you gaze long into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you.'
 
Steve.. why the repost? Al's SAME post is just 11 stories below yours.. and you even used the same link Al used plus his thread!!

I don't come in here day after day to get a sense of Déjà Vu.

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Steve.. stop scrambling my brains!!
 
Pfft they didn't invent a thing. This is just the same shit that's been in my mother-in-law's chest since she was born.
 
Imagine surrounding a projection screen with this stuff. That would look awesome. For those of you who don't use projectors, the screen looks better when the stuff near it doesn't reflect the light coming off the screen.
 
wnielsen said:
I totally want that for the walls of my theater room! My flat black paint just doesn't cut it.
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Bingo! That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this.

I'm thinking that this as wallpaper in critical areas would really be awesome. Then cleaning and dust wouldn't be as big a problem as it is with velvet.
 
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