Blacker Than Black

An anonymous reader writes "British scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in London have invented the darkest material on Earth. 'It could revolutionise optical instruments because it reflects 10 to 20 times less light than the black paint currently used to reduce unwanted reflections. The key to the nickel and phosphorous coating's blackness is that its surface is pitted with microscopic craters.' Wonder how effective it would be as a solar heating surface ?"

Comments

Materials Science

[JumpingBull]

This will prove to be useful, for two reasons:

First, it is a better absorber then what we have now, which, as someone pointed out, would make an incremental improvement for things such as solar collectors.

Second, it may find some powerful uses as a black body emitter, which would have some applications for cooling. Specifically, there is a window in the atmosphere where energy can leave the atmosphere ( around one of the IR ammonia lines, IIRC) this may alleviate the greenhouse effect ... maybe ...

As one of my Professors used to say "Progress is measured by progress in Materials Science". He might have been biased, however...

I would be very interested to find out the wavelengths where this is effective.

There are three types of reflectance that I am aware of: mirrors; diffuse reflectors (lambertian surfaces) and a special case of reflectance as found on a dusty surface, such as the moon( which is an aggragation of spherical lambertian surfaces, with special properties). Anyone else know of any others?