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Nanotubes Form The Darkest Material Yet Created

Posted by samzenpus on from the none-more-black dept.

toxcspdrmn writes "Bad news for Spinal Tap fans. The BBC reports that researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, have produced the darkest known material by manufacturing "forests" of carbon nanotubes. This forms a surface that absorbs or scatters 99.9% of all incidental light."

10 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Absorbtion by Psychotria · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the light is absorbed 99.9%, where does the energy go? Heat? If so, could this lead down the road to new power sources? Super-black nanotube network produces heat to produce steam to turn turbines... (??)

    1. Re:Absorbtion by blackest_k · · Score: 3, Interesting

      From the BBC article
      "The application will be to things like more efficient solar cells, more efficient solar panels and any application where you need to harvest light," he added.

      There was an earlier article on /. with a related technology essentially printing small antennas on a plastic film which essentially create a high frequency ac voltage from heat and light energy , if the nanotubes are conductive perhaps the two technologies be combined to make some extremely efficient solar panels.

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  2. Black body radiation by arrrrg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IANAP but I think by being a great absorber, it becomes a great emitter too: Black body. So it may not actually get much hotter than something less black. I guess it depends on where the equilibrium point is, and I don't have any intuition about that.

  3. Re:wouldn't scattered light still be light? by protobion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes but the point is , we wont let the material burn itself and everything around it. The material would start to get hot, but we will couple it to a thermoelectric/sterling etc. engine to generate power from the absorbed energy. The tubes should reach some steady state temperature and we have theoretically much more efficient light-based power source.

    --
    Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
  4. Where to put it by xZoomerZx · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Im wondering at the practical applications of this and how much it will have to be hidden or at least above the human zone (from the floor to about 7') I imagine extreme blackness would cause an effect similar to "The Blindspot" of sic-fi space travel. In effect the eye/brain would not 'see' the blackness and pull the visible edges together in an optical illusion.

    Case in point - I was once in a room that had contained a fire. The walls, floor, ceiling, and windows were all coated in a soft black soot that was perfectly uniform and ate all the light. The effect was very disconcerting and disorienting. None of the normal visual cues of highlights, textures, or reflections existed. Only the open door gave a reference point so that you didn't feel like you were floating in a void.

    The article posits several uses, but can you imagine a person clothed in this black in full sunlight? Could we even see them? or a building covered in it? or a car? Sight requires a least some photons to hit the retina. Anyone? I know I sound repetitive, its 0430 and didn't want to lose the train of thought to sleep.

    --
    Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
  5. Stack of razorblades by Wilson_6500 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I always thought it was kinda interesting that a stack of razorblades makes a fair approximation of a blackbody. You can't grow stacks of razorblades on surfaces, natch, but for some applications I imagine you just need a small optical sink and don't want to spend a lot of money. Then again, this could be just trivia more than something that's useful to know.

    (Because of the potential for dangerous reflections, please don't shine lasers into a stack of razors trying to test their reflectivity--unless you know what you're doing and, hopefully, have an appropriate pair of laser goggles.)

  6. Re:Why wont this change the world? by famebait · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was thinking along the same lines.

    But while his material would undoubtedly be very efficient for absorbing heat, it does not represent any revolution in that area: we can already absorb sunlight for heat with reasonably high efficiency with just basically black paint. This invention is better, by many percentage points, but it is still only an incremental step up from what we can already easily get per square meter.

    Also, as always, the economics come into play: it will often be a lot more attractive to use a cheaper and much simpler solution, and spend slightly more surface area to compensate for the lower efficiency.
    Extruded black plastic will probably still be hard to beat in the real world for a while.

    I think it will be much more useful in light sensitive applications.

    --
    sudo ergo sum
  7. A Room Without A view... by flajann · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Imagine being in a room completely covered with these carbon nanotubes. Even with a bright lamp with you, you'd feel as though you're sitting in outer space. Worse even, since you'd see no stars. It would be quite stunning, and could make a cool exhibit at some science museum.

    I wonder what it would cost to do? It would be wicked cool to do this to a bedroom!!!!

    --
    Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
    1. Re:A Room Without A view... by Doctor+Faustus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Imagine being in a room completely covered with these carbon nanotubes. Even with a bright lamp with you, you'd feel as though you're sitting in outer space.
      It would be great for photography. You can take pictures with no background, at all.

  8. Re:Superblack? Hardly. by Nerdposeur · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Are you being funny, or are you really that ignorant?

    Well, I thought I was being funny...