The New Black is Superblack Carbon Nanotube Vantablack that absorbs 99.965% of light

Sensitive electro-optical imaging and target-acquisition systems will achieve new levels of range and sensitivity performance thanks to a UK company’s breakthrough in developing a ‘super black’ material to be launched at the Farnborough International Air Show.

Surrey NanoSystems’ Vantablack® is revolutionary in its ability to be applied to light-weight, temperature-sensitive structures such as aluminium whilst absorbing 99.96% of incident radiation, believed to be the highest-ever recorded.

“Vantablack is a major breakthrough by UK industry in the application of nanotechnology to optical instrumentation. For example, it reduces stray-light, improving the ability of sensitive telescopes to see the faintest stars, and allows the use of smaller, lighter sources in space-borne black body calibration systems. Its ultra-low reflectance improves the sensitivity of terrestrial, space and air-borne instrumentation”, said Ben Jensen, Chief Technology Officer, Surrey NanoSystems.

Carbon nanotubes are incredibly absorbent across a huge range of spectra, from ultraviolet, to visible light, to infrared, to microwaves. Vantablack will be a very good material for stealth aircraft, weapons, and many other military uses. It will also be used on the inside of telescopes and other imaging devices, where absorbing stray radiation can significantly reduce the amount of noise — and thus increase the effective range and resolution).

The fabrication of NanoTube Black, a Vertically Aligned carbon NanoTube Array (VANTA) on aluminium substrates is reported for the first time. The coating on aluminium was realised using a process that employs top down thermal radiation to assist growth, enabling deposition at temperatures below the substrate’s melting point. The NanoTube Black coatings were shown to exhibit directional hemispherical reflectance values of typically less than 1% across wavelengths in the 2.5 µm to 15 µm range. VANTA-coated aluminium substrates were subjected to space qualification testing (mass loss, outgassing, shock, vibration and temperature cycling) before their optical properties were re-assessed. Within measurement uncertainty, no changes to hemispherical reflectance were detected, confirming that NanoTube Black coatings on aluminium are good candidates for Earth Observation (EO) applications.

Optics Express – The partial space qualification of a vertically aligned carbon nanotube coating on aluminium substrates for EO applications

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