Scientists Have Developed a Material So Dark That You Can't See It

gbjbaanb writes A British company is developing a new material that's so black it absorbs all but 0.035 percent of the visual light, making it the darkest material ever created. Of course, apart from making album covers, it conducts heat 7 times better than copper and is 10 times stronger than steel. "The nanotube material, named Vantablack, has been grown on sheets of aluminium foil by the Newhaven-based company. While the sheets may be crumpled into miniature hills and valleys, this landscape disappears on areas covered by it. 'You expect to see the hills and all you can see it's like black, like a hole, like there's nothing there. It just looks so strange,' said Ben Jensen, the firm's chief technical officer.

Comments

I was able to sneak into their laboratories

[ArcadeMan]

And I took a photo of the material.

galactic hyper-hearse

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the weird colour scheme that freaks me. Every time you try to operate one of these weird black controls, which are labeled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to let you know you've done it. Hey, what is this, some kind of galactic hyper-hearse?

It's like, how much more black could this be?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the answer is none. None more black.

Looks like they'll get rich

[russotto]

This is the sort of material which could be used for artificial hearts for lawyers, bankers, and politicians.