Forget Orange; Vantablack is the New Black: Researchers Create New Material Darker than Black
Jul 15, 2014 09:31 PM EDT
British scientists have created a new material using carbon nanotubes that absorbs nearly all the light that comes in contact with its surface. Vantablack (vanta stands for "vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays") is capable of retaining all but 0.035% of the light that hits it. That means that when the human eye looks at something covered in the new material, it can't actually see the surface of it; all our eyes and brains can do is see the area surrounding the black space. Vantablack already has several early adopters in the space and defense industries, where the applications many (coating all manner of stealth vehicles or hypersensitive telescopes are just a few ways this new material might be put to use).
