MIT engineers manage to create a material with a black ten times deeper than Vantablack.
Five years ago British scientists created Vantablack, the deepest black color in the world. Able to swallow 99.96% of the light received. Thus they began a kind of race in the scientific world to create the most absorbent black material. Now is when a group of MIT engineers has published their discovery in the journal ACS (‘Applied Materials and Interfaces’), claiming to have managed to create a material 10 times blacker than any other previously published.
Like Vantablack, this material is composed of Carbon nanotubes placed vertically as if they were small filaments, tubes inserted on a surface of aluminum with chlorine. The result? A small completely dark black cape that they have decided to exhibit on the New York Stock Exchange under the title “The Redemption of Vanity.”
The display It is most curious since it combines a very shiny object, a yellow diamond valued at about two million dollars, together with the layer of this black material. What causes us to have a light side and when turning it is completely blackened.
An unsought discovery
From the academic side, the research has been carried out between Brian Wardle, professor of aeronautics at MIT and Kehang Cui, postdoc at MIT and current professor at Jiao Tong University in Shanghai. But as they explain themselves, the creation of the material was not premeditated.
The goal of the two engineers was to find ways to grow carbon nanotubes in materials such as aluminum and thus increase their electrical and thermal properties. In that search they found a problem: the presence of an oxide layer. To avoid this, the method was to use a solution in sodium chloride (Salt). Thanks to a process of chemical vapor deposition, they were eliminating the oxide layer and thus being able to make the carbon nanotubes grow, at lower temperatures than they previously could and managing to increase the conductivity as initially intended.
But in the midst of these reactions is when they observed that the color was also changing. “I remember how black it was before I grew the carbon nanotubes and how deep it was afterward. So much so that I thought about measuring the reflectivity of the sample,” says Wardle as described by SciTechDaily. “Our group does not focus on the optical properties of materials, but it happened just when we were collaborating with Diemut on his art and science exhibition.”
According to the obtained calculations, the material absorbs more than 99.995% of light, from every angle. This means that there are no reflections and it is practically impossible to discern if, for example, the material has rough parts.
“Our material is 10 times blacker than anything previously described, but I think the blackest black is a constantly moving target. Someone will find a blacker material, and eventually we will understand all the underlying mechanisms, and we can properly design the ultimate black, “explains Wardle.
According to the researchers, this material can be used to build different artistic works but it could also have practical uses for reduce unwanted glare, useful for helping with telescopes and searching for exoplanets.
In Engadget | This BMW X6 is the “blackest car in the world”, they have painted it with Vantablack
