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The Blackest Material

Posted by kdawson on from the reflect-on-this dept.

QuantumCrypto writes "Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created 'the world's first material that reflects virtually no light.' This anti-reflection technology is based on nanomaterial and could lead to the development of more efficient solar cells, brighter LEDs, and 'smarter' light sources. In theory, if a room were to be coated with this material, switching on the lights would only illuminate the items in the room and not the walls, giving a sense of floating free in infinite space."

57 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. tsk by scapermoya · · Score: 3, Funny

    dupe.

    --
    Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
    1. Re:tsk by Ekhymosis · · Score: 5, Funny

      As per your signature, if the walls in the dungeon were coated with this stuff, a grue would most definately have its way with you =)

      --
      Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
    2. Re:tsk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Link to earlier article: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/0 2/2113206

    3. Re:tsk by ghoti · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What is actually interesting though is that even the combined wisdom of all the Firehose users has not been able to spot the dupe (and a bunch of others). You can still blame the editors for posting the dupe, but this collaborative filtering should really go much further.

      --
      EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
    4. Re:tsk by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As a Firehose user, I must say that it gets difficult to keep track of which dupe stories made it to the front page and which are just dupe submissions that have not yet made it to the front page. Despite the distinctive color, the mass of submissions become a blur.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    5. Re:tsk by vimh42 · · Score: 3, Funny

      but a dupe gives me a chance to relay something I forgot the first time I saw the story.

      My mother in law once saw a black shirt that said (in a dark brown font) "I'm just wearing this color until they find something darker."

      I guess I've found a new material to make a t-shirt out of.

    6. Re:tsk by KillerCow · · Score: 2, Informative

      My mother in law once saw a black shirt that said (in a dark brown font) "I'm just wearing this color until they find something darker."


      here
  2. Looks like a fish, by Clever7Devil · · Score: 4, Funny

    Moves like a fish, steers like a cow.

    --
    "By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
  3. To get this out of the way... by EvanED · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess we know what material Hotblack Desiato used to make his stunt ship...

  4. Outside by Rie+Beam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "In theory, if a room were to be coated with this material, switching on the lights would only illuminate the items in the room and not the walls, giving a sense of floating free in infinite space."

    Outside of that gravity thing. Sounds more like standing outside in the country.

    1. Re:Outside by Darth+Muffin · · Score: 5, Funny
      ... or you could just close your eyes and get the same effect. Much cheaper too :)

      All of my kid's Goth friends are probably rejoycing and wondering when they can get a t-shirt or trechcoat made of this stuff.

      --
      Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
    2. Re:Outside by DJ+Nanashi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No no, it's Emo now, not goth.

    3. Re:Outside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      no, as a highschool student we have both goth and emo. The difference is goths are just like the same, goths havent changed, emo's on the other hand, are all about being pansy ass little pussies about everything and trying as hard as possible to look and act like emaciated little girls. Also the music is completely different, you cant even compair The Cruxshadows(really good band) to emo shit like falloutboy, panic at the disco, and the other "i hate my life and no one loves me bands"

    4. Re:Outside by Joebert · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What happened to the good old days when it was "pussy" & everyone knew what you meant ?

      --
      Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
    5. Re:Outside by admactanium · · Score: 4, Informative

      I expect a very practical use for this material, if it is not too expensive, will be as a wall coating to replace green screens in filmmaking. It would allow lighting the subjects without worry about any light spill onto the background, and maybe allow better keying for special effects. You would just replace all pixel values that equal zero with your own background data, instead of keying on that narrow-band green which is, after all, still green.
      except that would be color keying much harder because black naturally exists on objects like people and clothes. the reason things are shot again chroma green and blue is because they're not as commonly occurring in the objects that they're trying to photograph and extract. the reason the green and blue are a very specific color is to make keying easier by isolating that color in one channel of rgb. that way it's much easier to determine the differential information. keying against black is practically useless unfortunately. you'd have to go in and rotoscope everything that is black (like hair or eyeglass frames or belt, etc) or a value of black back in to the image. plus, on set they don't worry about light spilling onto the screen because they're usually much more brightly lit than the subject to keep a consistent tone throughout. presumeably, the reason they use blue and green is to allow for photography of subjects that are in the other color range (ie, guy with green shirt on bluescreen, guy with blueshirt on greenscreen). nobody keys against chroma red because obviously everyone's skin would cause them to be semi-transparent.

      if you're talking about the key color spilling into the subject (like in between hair and such) than that's a different issue. that's why when you do a telecine, you'll do what's called a "suppress pass" which desaturated all of the key's color. that way you can comp the original footage minus the key color back into the comp to kill the color spill without having to hand-draw it into each frame.

      i'm sure it could be used for some pretty interesting techniques in photography and film but color keying isn't likely to be one of them.

    6. Re:Outside by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree mostly, but note I did say pixels of zero. I meant by that absolute pure black, complete absence of reflectance. In a normally-lit scene I would expect no things would be completely down on the 'floor' i.e. r=0 b= g=0 and so pure black could be keyable. True pure black would not exist on people or objects but would with this background material, allowing a new approach in lighting. One of the problems I find with dynamic range in movie images is that the shadows/black usually block up, but in nature, we tend to see a little detail in black. With this new material, one could therefore could light everything so shadows would not block completely to black, and I would think it would allow better dynamic range compositionally. Other than that, I understand what you said and agree.

    7. Re:Outside by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Coat the inside of cameras (and lens barrels), yes, great application!

      Sine I posted, I realized there are some flaws in my model of the luminance dynamics and in the post-processing, so I have to go rethink that all. My film work was decades ago and mostly industrial anyway.

      I wonder if the military already has some form of this material, by the way. Er, probably captured from a crashed saucer, of course. (cough)

    8. Re:Outside by ibennetch · · Score: 2, Informative
      Like others have said, I don't know how well this would work; I think chromakey techniques (green or blue screens) are better (but because chroma keys are cleaner than luma keys, not because of the black problem); but your theory could work just fine under the right circumstances. I work in TV and have done keys just as you describe (though graphic keys, not people, but the concept is the same). With analog (composite) video, the blackest part of the picture should be 7.5% (IRE) -- not 0; because of some boring complicated details related to using a 60-ish year old standard. If you use, say, 0 or 3 IRE as the part to be keyed out and leave the true black of the image at 7.5 IRE, you could easily set your switcher to key properly with the proper black levels. What you describe is called a Luma Key. Now a lot of production is done digitally (SDI), where the blacks are at 0%, so that makes it more complicated, but it might still work, though I haven't tried it.

      It would allow lighting the subjects without worry about any light spill onto the background
      A very interesting idea. There are plenty of times one wants exactly this effect and having walls like you describe might make it easier.
  5. #GGGGGG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, THAT black?

    1. Re:#GGGGGG by ghoti · · Score: 3, Funny

      Gnaaaa, you're confusing me! I meant of course 8-bit, not 4-bit, since colors have three 8-bit components, not six 4-bit ones. Rest of the comment still holds, though, and proves that black equals white, for really dark shades of black.

      --
      EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
    2. Re:#GGGGGG by dr_dank · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    3. Re:#GGGGGG by skoaldipper · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, you know what they say...

      Once you go #GGGG, you never go ^H^H^H^H.

      --
      I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
  6. how much more black could this be? by chameleon_skin · · Score: 5, Funny

    The answer is none.

    None more black.

    1. Re:how much more black could this be? by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Apparently they only thought it couldn't get more black. Now it seems somebody has learned how to turn the black up to 11. I smell a new album... (and the glove).

  7. Dolomite by Irongeek_ADC · · Score: 2, Funny

    You mean it's not Dolomite?

    --
    Irongeek's Hacking Videos / Security Videos and Articles
    1. Re:Dolomite by analogheretic · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think you mean Dolemite, not dolomite.

      --
      That is not dead which can eternal lie,
      And with strange aeons even death may die.
    2. Re:Dolomite by re6smith · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's the hip black material that won't cop out when there's light all about.

  8. Possible uses for the military? by purpledinoz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It says that it reflects virtually no light. I wonder if that includes the frequencies that are used for radar. If it doesn't reflect any radar signals, that could radically change military aircraft. Currently, military aircraft use shape as well as radar absorbing materials to achieve their stealthy-ness. Imagine if you can coat an F-16 with this stuff, and bam, you have a pretty cheap stealth fighter.

    1. Re:Possible uses for the military? by nuzak · · Score: 2, Funny

      A blindfold works pretty well for that too.

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    2. Re:Possible uses for the military? by Bill+Dog · · Score: 2, Funny

      The rain would, if it could only see it.

      --
      Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
    3. Re:Possible uses for the military? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wavelength is pretty much the determining factor in hw EM radiation interacts with matter. Visible light is 400-700 nanometers, whereas radar is in the range of 1-40 centimeters.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    4. Re:Possible uses for the military? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Informative

      The interesting thing about light is that it's NOT radar.
      Maybe not, but they're both electromagnetic waves (though with a very different wavelength). So the question may be relevant. It's not particularly relevant. The wavelength difference between radar and light is in the range of 20000 to one. You need two different antennas to pick up AM and FM, and they are only different by about two orders of magnitude (100:1). Dealing with electromagnetic radiation has everything to do with wavelength. A material "tuned" to absorb the maximum about of EM radiation between 400 and 700 nanometers wavelength is utterly unsuited to the task of absorbing radar at 1-4 centimeters. I'm not trying to be a troll here. I'm pointing out the science.
      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    5. Re:Possible uses for the military? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My God, please mod this insightful. Snide, yes, AC, yes, but a completely valid point. Valid? Sure-- about as valid as "if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their ass a-hoppin'"

      He pointed out the obvious and then did nothing with it. Hardly insightful.
      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  9. Re:Actually... by NotHereOrThere · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The TFA is about a perfectly black coating that reflects nothing. This does not imply that it is transparent as you seem to be inferring.

  10. Blackness by ElephanTS · · Score: 4, Funny

    Emo's are going to love this stuff.

    --
    spoonerize "magic trackpad"
  11. Re:Actually... by Bill+Dog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    By "reflects virtually no light", read "absorbs virtually all light". Hence the applicability, for example, in creating much more efficient solar panels.

    Not to mention moving us one step closer, possibly, to having a real Holodeck!

    --
    Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
  12. Re:Military use? by Carnildo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hate to be a warmonger here, but this stuff could probably be used in military applications as well, probably for night ops and the like. A modern day ninja outfit with this stuff comes to mind


    Contrary to popular belief, the best color for urban night camoflage is not solid black. Depending on the environment, it's either charcoal grey (for general hard-to-see-ness), or irregularly-patterned greys (to break up the outline of your body).
    --
    "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
  13. Doesn't work for me by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 3, Funny

    "giving a sense of floating free in infinite space" Well I tried standing in a dark space with my eyes shut, which must be pretty much the same thing, and all that happened to me was that I felt like an idiot, especially when people saw me climbing back out of the office supply cabinet.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  14. Claustrophobics rejoice by GiovanniZero · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Assuming this isn't just vaporware...

    This stuff could be really cool for use in MRIs or other tight spaces that claustrophobics normally have to go into. It would give those that are normally afraid to be in small spaces the sense that they were in a vastly infinite space. That's pretty cool IMO.

    I'd also like to have my home theater coated with this stuff, think about how large your house would feel! Even with low level ceilings.

    --
    Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
  15. Picture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can we get a picture?

  16. Automated Dup Rating Score Would Help... by Ron+Bennett · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Often dups will contain similar links, phrases, keywords, etc to the originally posted article ... it seems to me that an automated system could be developed that would assign a "dup rating" score to submitted articles to make dups easier to spot beforehand.

    Ron

  17. Re:Military use? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hate to be a warmonger here, but this stuff could probably be used in military applications as well, probably for night ops and the like. A modern day ninja outfit with this stuff comes to mind


    Contrary to popular belief, the best color for urban night camoflage is not solid black. Depending on the environment, it's either charcoal grey (for general hard-to-see-ness), or irregularly-patterned greys (to break up the outline of your body).
    Indeed. This is because everything occurring in nature tends to reflect some light, even in the dark, when there isn't much to reflect. Solid black doesn't reflect enough, and subsequently actually stands out like a big empty void in a gray jumble of dimness.
    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  18. Is it blacker than priests socks? by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 4, Funny

    DOUGAL: Anyway, what else did you order?

    TED: Priest socks. Really black ones.

    DOUGAL: I read somewhere, I think it was in an article about priest socks that priest socks are blacker than any other type of socks.

    TED: That's right Dougal. Sometimes you see lay people wear what look like black socks but if you look closely you'll see they're very, very, very, very, very, very, very dark blue.

    DOUGAL: Actually that's true. I thought my uncle Tommy was wearing black socks but when I looked at them closely they were just very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY, very, very, very dark blue.

    TED: Never buy black socks in a normal shop. They'll shaft you every time!

  19. Re:Actually... by jdwilso2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    this is a faulty assumption ... I'll leave the "virtually" out to simplify the statements, but here you go ...

    to say something "reflects no light" does not mean it "absorbs all light" ...

    you are leaving out transmission of light. If a material does not reflect light, it either absorbs or transmits all the rest of the light.

    which is actually what this article is talking about ... material clearer than glass but not quite as clear as air.

    this was quite an errant post as it is both a dupe and factually flawed.

  20. Re:Is this a record? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You just duped a story from three days ago. Do you guys even read your own site? Of course not. They're not actually editors. They're not even nerds. They're a bunch of dumbfuck kids left in charge of what was once an interesting message board. It's not just the Slashvertisements, astroturf articles, and just plain un-nerdy, non-mattering stuff. Have you seen the idiotic poll questions lately? How about the current poll? What kind of true nerd asks "What is your favorite test" and fails to include two of the three grand-daddy nerd tests of all? They got Turing, but that's the obvious one. They missed Kobayashi Maru and Voight-Kampff, fer bog's sake! Obviously, they're simpleminded pretenders of the most detestable sort--- the kind that pretend for money.

    Doesn't matter anyway. This place has been ruined by trolls and morons already.
    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  21. Fuligin! by Diomedes01 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One step closer to getting a Fuligin cloak for that Severian costume I've always wanted to wear to Halloween parties.

    --
    "To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
  22. Re:Military Death Ray Applications? by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, and (like) imagine if we all had flying guitars we could ride around on, and they'd (like) play themselves, and we'd be famous rock stars too!

    Seriously, man, we're you actually going anywhere with that crowd control shield thing? Andwhy here?

    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  23. Re:Is this a record? by maxume · · Score: 5, Funny

    Things to help you relax are available in liquid, pill, written, aural, visual, surgical and human forms, among others. Maybe give one of them some serious consideration.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  24. Re:What does it look like? by Russ+Steffen · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here's a picture, in one of the very few graphic formats Slashdot will accept in a comment, XBM -

    #define noname_width 16
    #define noname_height 16
    static char noname_bits[] = {
    0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00, 0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
    0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00, 0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
    0x00,0x00};

  25. It's sooooo black.... by PhotoGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    That even a previous article about the stuff failed to be seen by /. editors.

    --
    Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  26. Re:Actually... by DittoBox · · Score: 4, Funny

    HOMER: What are you inferring?
    LISA: I'm not inferring anything. You infer; I imply.
    HOMER: Well that's a relief.

    --
    Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
  27. Re: dupe by KillerCow · · Score: 2, Informative

    dupe.


    Dude, do it with a little style.

    Dupe: Reflectivity Reaches a New Low
  28. Why dupe? by jinkside · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why did people think this is/was a dupe? It looks genuine, even though the URL didn't work for me. http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1956 worked for me, though, which I got from their main page.

  29. So is this... by kybred · · Score: 2, Funny

    The new black?

  30. Re:Military use? by istartedi · · Score: 2, Funny

    Depends on the city of course. Around here, the optimal pattern is a mix of concrete and brick spattered with rat feces and black magic marker grafiti. You'll blend right in.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  31. Re:Military use? by BiggerBoat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Quite so.

    I remember one summer night in Yosemite when my brother and I spent an hour lying on our backs on one of the approved boardwalks across one of the meadows taking in the impressive night sky. I was astonished at how "other than black" the peaks and everything else around us were compared to the blackness of Space above, when, without the clear night sky to compare them to, I would have sworn that I was looking at some "pure blacks" among my Earthly surroundings. I was impressed by the contrast that I would not have believed was there had I not seen it with my own eyes.

  32. 4x reflectors by purduephotog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At Kodak when we needed 'black' to capture no matter how much light was tossed on the film (for targets) we used a special designed prism- it consisted of 4 highly polished black angled walls and an aperture that, given any direction light would enter, would require a minimum of 4x reflections in order to exit.

    Each of the walls reflected 0.1% of the light.... so the entire setup reflected 0.1^4 (%).... or about 'nothing'.

    Anyway... The real reason I posted here is there's a guy on Ebay selling virtual backdrops. He bought a whole bunch from one of the photography forumns, and then photographed them in- and cells a single chroma key background, with the CD of the other background. He's making a pretty penny :)