Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with the blackest material known to date which is 10 times blacker than any material reported so far. The material is made up of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The CNTs are basically microscopic filaments of carbon that the team grew on the surface of chlorine etched aluminum foil. The reason put forward claiming it as the blackest material on record is that the foil captures 99.995% of any incoming light.  In other words, it reflected 10 times less light than all other super-black materials.

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Practical applications in future

Brian Wardle, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, said that the CNT material can be used for practical applications, for instance in optical blinders that reduce unwanted glare, to help space telescopes spot orbiting exoplanets. "There are optical and space science applications for very black materials, and of course, artists have been interested in black, going back well before the Renaissance," said Wardle. “Our material is 10 times blacker than anything that’s ever been reported, but I think the blackest black is a constantly moving target. Someone will find a blacker material, and eventually we’ll understand all the underlying mechanisms, and will be able to properly engineer the ultimate black,” he added.

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Accidental creation

The interesting fact behind the creation is that they didn’t intend to engineer an ultra-black material and came up with it accidentally. Brian Wardle and former MIT postdoc Kehang Cui, now a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, were experimenting with ways to grow carbon nanotubes on electrically conducting materials such as aluminium, to boost their electrical and thermal properties. “I remember noticing how black it was before growing carbon nanotubes on it, and then after growth, it looked even darker,” said Cui. “So I thought I should measure the optical reflectance of the sample,” he added.

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Influence of Art on Science

According to Wardle, their group does not usually focus on optical properties of materials, but this work was going on at the same time as art-science collaborations with Diemut Strebe, artist-in-residence, MIT Center for Art, Science, and Technology. “So art influenced science in this case,” said Wardle. Cui measured the amount of light reflected by the material, not just from directly overhead, but also from every other possible angle and the results showed that the material absorbed at least 99.995 per cent of incoming light, from every angle. “CNT forests of different varieties are known to be extremely black, but there is a lack of mechanistic understanding as to why this material is the blackest. That needs further study,” said Wardle.

(With inputs from PTI)

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