Awesome stuff:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/super-black-material.html
Holy… :o
So maybe a military application and a cooling application- which interests me most.
You think cooling? I was thought it would heat up if it is absorbing the light.
In space, radiative heat transfer dominates, and the darker the object, the more it radiates (the greater its emissivity). That’s why manned spacecraft are painted white - it “traps” the most possible heat.
I think NASA will be creating album jackets now.
I wasn’t thinking of space, that makes sense though. I think a stealth aircraft would be seriously stealthy with that stuff on it.
That was my first thought too.
Unfortunately, anything coated with this material generates an ENORMOUS gravity well… :
“It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.”
Couldn’t help myself…
If ALL light was absorbed and none reflected, you would be Cloaked …inviso…
But there would be a noticeable void of light as compared to surrounding reflections
“The blacker the material, the more heat it radiates away. In other words, super-black materials, like the carbon nanotube coating, can be used on devices that remove heat from instruments and radiate it away to deep space. This cools the instruments to lower temperatures, where they are more sensitive to faint signals.”
This is contrary to what I’ve always thought…black materials absorb sunlight and heat up, but they in turn radiate the heat away from objects.
That’s why electronic heatsinks are black.
I wonder how this would affect FLIR?
And is it available at Hot Topic yet?
Not necessarily. Light is being converted to a longer wavelength and radiated back out. You need to direct the longer wavelength radiation away from the object being cooled.
IR telescopes become more sensitive when cooled because they see heat. The cooler they are themselves, the less they interfere with the heat being collected from the objective.
And stealth (and GPS) satellites and all types of missles (e.g., sub-based and ICBM), too.
You can’t shoot it down if you can’t reliably detect it.
although there was no mention of the material absorbing the wavelengths used for radar. so I am not sure how well it would work for stealth. But it seems like it would be an interesting product in the solar energy industry as well. In space black may help with cooling but on earth it helps with heating.
I’ve already made a Imp stout thats blacker…
First thought…obligatory, but Spinal Tap, of course.
Second thought…somewhere someone is going to try to harness this to win the contrast ratio wars in the flat panel TV market.