You have heard of black. You have heard of ebony. But have you heard of “vantablack”?
In 1706, Isaac Newton arranged the three primary colours of red, yellow and blue along with the secondary of orange, green and indigo in a wheel shape, also known as Colour Wheel. Since then the variety of different shades and colours has led to the creation of new names for each different hue. However, the significance of each one still stays intact with the colour itself throughout the years. Thus, green is for hope, yellow is for jealousy, red is for love and passion, white is for innocence and purity, and black is for darkness and dimness. Right? Wrong!
Owing its name to the abbreviation of the term Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Arrays, this material is here to make you forget everything you knew so far about blackness. Also referred to as super black, vantablack is the new “blackest black” material ever created on Earth, capable to reflect only but 0,035% of the light that it comes in contact with – making it the most light-absorbent material that has ever existed. This new world record is owed to this material’s coating made of carbon nanotubes which have a size 10.000 times thinner than a normal human hair and so minuscule that light cannot get in but can only pass into the gaps in between.
The material was created by researchers of the British company Surrey NanoSystems, as states the relevant scientific publication in the journal Optical “Optics Express” and will be officially presented to the international aerospace exhibition of Farnborough this week, according to the UK «Independent» and «Daily Mail». Its main use and application is said to be mainly for military purposes, of which however the British company is not willing to discuss publicly yet.
Vantablack is the result of applying Surrey NanoSystems’ patented low-temperature carbon nanotube growth process to the UK Technology Strategy Board’s ‘Space for Growth’ programme, working alongside the National Physical Laboratory and Enersys’ ABSL Space Products division. The manufacture of `super-black` carbon nanotube-based materials has traditionally required high temperatures, however, thanks to the completion of this two year development and test programme in December 2013, it was successfully managed to create it via a low-temperature manufacturing process from silicon to aluminium structures and pyroelectric sensors.
This new material is of such dark hue that makes it almost impossible for the human eye to define and fully spot, by giving the idea of a black “hole” on anything this material covers, “wiping out” not only its shape but also its dimensions. What is more, vantablack is a very good conductor of heat (seven and a half times better than copper) and provides ten times greater strength than steel.
Primarily developed for astronomical use in telescopes, cameras and infrared scanning systems, vantablack is set to be able to improve the visual sensitivity of these tools. Nevertheless, given to this material’s uniqueness and variety of possibilities, its use can find other practical applications as well. For example, if someone is wearing a black piece of clothing coated by vantablack, then the head and the edges will seem to be hovering around in the air like in a disembodied pitch-black abyss!
“You expect to see the hills and all you can see … it’s like black, like a hole, like there’s nothing there. It just looks so strange”, said Ben Jensen, Chief Technology Officer, Surrey NanoSystems.
However, for all those of you who value Coco Channel’s advice on the importance for that little black dress better think again, as Mr Jensen also said that such a dress “Would be too expensive – due to the high cost of the vantablack material – and every aspect and detail of the dress would be lost since it would resemble a black hole on the person’s body”.
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By Kerasia Sklavounou
Student of MA Learning & Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts
University of Luxembourg
Study visitor at TermCoord