Blackest material EVAR

Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 16, 2008 2:08 PM | permalink

Helion sez, "Good news for goth clothing - darkest ever material created from a forest of nearly totally light-absorbing carbon nanotubes. Dark forest indeed."

A team led by Dr Pulickel Ajayan, who is presently at Rice University in Houston, Texas, built an array of vertically aligned, low-density carbon nanotubes. Dr Shawn Lin measured the optical properties.
The roughness of the material's surface was tuned to minimise its optical reflectance. Experiments showed that this "forest" of carbon nanotubes was very good at absorbing light, and very poor at reflecting it.

None more black! Link (Thanks, Helion!)

(Image: Blue'n'black, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from szeretlek_ma's Flickr stream)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by aluxeterna

, January 16, 2008 2:14 PM

could you say they turned the black all the way to eleven?

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#2 posted by NeonCat , January 16, 2008 2:14 PM

I am reminded of the ship Ford and Zaphod stole in Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the Sundiver, I believe it was called.

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#3 posted by Habits , January 16, 2008 2:16 PM

It's Carbon Nanotubes Day at boingboing.net!

Happy Carbon Nanotubes Day, everyone!

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#4 posted by Cazart , January 16, 2008 2:18 PM

Blacker-than-the-blackest-black times infinity?
That is so metal.

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#5 posted by Takuan , January 16, 2008 2:29 PM

film makers are going to love this.

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#6 posted by Moon , January 16, 2008 2:29 PM

Black Hole! Black Hole! Black Hole!

Our whole world will be sucked into it!

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#7 posted by certron , January 16, 2008 2:31 PM

This reminds me of a previous story I read about femtosecond laser pulses that sort of did a similar thing, only maybe not quite as ordered. http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2701
There doesn't seem to be too much information available to actually compare these two methods (zapping vs building) but the cause of absorption is similar.

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#8 posted by jere7my

, January 16, 2008 2:49 PM

Someone let Gene Wolfe know they've invented fuligin.

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#9 posted by mellowknees

, January 16, 2008 2:57 PM

I can't wait to see Dethklok have clothing made out of this.

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#10 posted by zuzu

, January 16, 2008 3:10 PM

I am reminded of the ship Ford and Zaphod stole in Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the Sundiver, I believe it was called.

"The reason I'm having so much trouble flying this ship is because it's black. The walls are black, the floor is black, the console is black, the switches are black, the labels are little black letters printed on a black background, and when you press anything, a black light lights up in black to tell you you've done it."

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#11 posted by wynneth , January 16, 2008 3:40 PM

"Blackest Material EVAR" rock on! In the tradition of the übergoth I was always quite fond of the ship in Restaurant, although I don't recall it actually being named.
This stuff would go great with my "I'm only wearing black until they make something darker" shirt!!!!

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#12 posted by Kevin , January 16, 2008 4:25 PM

This stuff would go great with my "I'm only wearing black until they make something darker" shirt!!!!

Once they productize the material, it'll put my "#000000" black-on-black T-shirt to shame.

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#13 posted by anthropomorphictoast , January 16, 2008 4:46 PM

Awesome. Nothing gothier than wearing a Singularity. :D

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#14 posted by picklefactory , January 16, 2008 5:17 PM

I am thinking here of fuligin from Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun" series. The material darker than black -- the guild of the torturers wear it.

I always hoped someone would get around to creating it someday!

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#15 posted by weaponx , January 16, 2008 6:52 PM

Still not as black as Samuel L. Jackson.

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#16 posted by anangbhai

, January 16, 2008 7:08 PM

I think you mean Wesley Snipes.

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#17 posted by Takuan , January 16, 2008 8:21 PM

OK:almost as black as Cheney's heart?

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#18 posted by AahMyEyes , January 17, 2008 12:11 AM

First thing I thought was "Ninja suits"

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#19 posted by egghat , January 17, 2008 1:42 AM

Something for Steve.

The thinnest notebook presented by the coolest guy in the blackest turtleneck ever ...

Blacker blacker blacker ....

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#20 posted by Jeff , January 17, 2008 5:20 AM

I'm surprised no one has suggested that this sort of light absorbing material sounds like the stuff that the monolith of 2001 might have been made of. I'm used smart fabics like this in my own stuff, and I remember Greg Bear using similar technolgy in Slant.

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#21 posted by frogmarch , January 17, 2008 5:49 AM

I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Vertically Aligned Low-Density Carbon Nanotubes.

Or, if you prefer,

I wear vertically aligned low-density carbon nanotubes on the outside/because vertically aligned low-density carbon nanotubes is how I feel on the inside

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#22 posted by absimiliard , January 17, 2008 6:44 AM

@Wynneth in #11

I absolutely LOVE that shirt. It's one of the favorites in my collection of black t-shirts.

I almost love it as much as the one that has one of those color-blindness test-circles (the ones with loads of different dots in them) that says "I

-abs

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#23 posted by absimiliard , January 17, 2008 8:03 AM

Whoops, guess my response got cut off.

I meant to finish it thusly.....

. . . that says "I

-abs