#darkest material

Super Black Material

Have you ever wondered what the darkest material known to man is? Well, it goes without saying that UK scientists have managed to determine this conveniently. In fact, it’s not a discovery – it is an actual creation. It’s a newly produced material which is firmly believed to be the darkest material that has been created. Vantablack, that’s how it’s called, is a pure carbon…

Vantablack Is The Darkest Material Known To Man, And It’s Pretty Trippy

Vantablack is a term that not everyone is familiar with, but in terms of its significance, perhaps more people should! This is due to the fact that the material is known as the darkest substance in the entire world – it’s even The Guinness Book of World Records. It has been constructed from miniscule nanotubes and was initially claimed to be able to absorb as much as 99.96% of any light that comes…

The darkest material on Earth has become even darker

The Cyphochilus beetle. Credit to Wild Center/Flickr

The creation of the blackest known material may lead to advancements in light- and energy-harvesting devices. Inspired by the exceptionally white scales of the Cyphochilus beetle, a King Abdullah University research team has created a disordered nanostructured material with black body absorption of 98-99% – a rate that is unaffected by angle of incidence or polarisation.

The material should look a little like this

The whiteness of the Cyphochilus is derived from the photonic crystal structure of its scales, capable of reflecting light extremely efficiently. Assistant Professor Andrea Fratalocchi inverted this structure, creating a disorderly arrangement that create patterns of random pits consisting of infinitely long metallic waveguides.

The new material is 26% darker than the previous record holder, carbon nanotubes.