I'm Only Wearing Black Until They Come Up With Something Darker

NASA Develops Super-Black Material That Absorbs Light Across Multiple Wavelength Bands

ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2011) — NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it -- a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.

Not just space technology, but STEALTH technology. Super-black materials like this are made with carbon nanotubes and would be easy to apply to aircraft, satellites, ground vehicles and even the uniforms of troops in order to better conceal them from detection methods such as FLIR, or laser target designation technology like SOFLAM.

In particular, the team found that the material absorbs 99.5 percent of the light in the ultraviolet and visible, dipping to 98 percent in the longer or far-infrared bands. "The advantage over other materials is that our material is from 10 to 100 times more absorbent, depending on the specific wavelength band," Hagopian said.

Being able to absorb this amount of light especially in the ultraviolet, infrared, and near infrared wavelengths would make night operations against a sophisticated enemy pretty one-sided. Night vision would have serious trouble with this material as well.

Night-useful spectral range techniques can sense radiation that is invisible to a human observer. Human vision is confined to a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum called visible light. Enhanced spectral range allows the viewer to take advantage of non-visible sources of electromagnetic radiation (such as near-infrared or ultraviolet radiation). Some animals can see using much more of the infrared and/or ultraviolet spectrum than humans.

At the end of the day, I expect camouflage to become far more sophisticated over time as technologies such as this are developed, and one day applied to the field of battle.

Related Thread:
Camouflage: History and Progress

So I i wear to build a room with this material and put a lamp in it, would I be able to see?

reply to post by 8ILlBILl8


You would probably notice that there isn't much reflection.

If you paint a room black can you see? Of course, but only a small amount of light will be making it back to your eyes so unless you're looking directly at the lamp, everything is going to pretty much wind up featureless.

Originally posted by 8ILlBILl8
So I i wear to build a room with this material and put a lamp in it, would I be able to see?

Unless the stuff is so good it performs like a black hole you should be able to see just fine.
ETA: I wonder if it would really work for troops though. I mean, wouldn't they end up looking like strange, shadowy ninja's due to the lack of light? In other words, they surely won't be "invisible"?

Speaking as a massive metal head, I have to confess that now that there is something darker than black, I may have to update my wardrobe for the first time in my adult life.

I would LOVE to get an outfit made of this stuff.

interesting.. wouldnt help much in the jungle though - it doesnt hide the scent of a human.. which to people used to being out in the jungle is something that is noticed quite quickly..
for urban envireonments where peoples senses are less acute it would work ok..

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


In broad daylight? Sure.

But at night where IR/NIR/NVGs are used this would be purpose built to suit special operations.

reply to post by 8ILlBILl8


I would imagine it would be similar to a camp lantern in the middle of the woods on a moonless night.
You can pretty much step out of the sphere of light that the lamp makes.
If the walls do not reflect, they shouldn't attract the light.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
I would LOVE to get an outfit made of this stuff.

You'd probably want to wait to until they have their costs down and a reliable means to mass-produce the stuff. Until then, enjoy your 2 million dollar outfit.

reply to post by Junkheap


Ozzy could afford it.

Just sayin'

reply to post by projectvxn


Emo's and goth's everywhere Got extremely happy........only for like 5 seconds though then they got moody again.

is there a picture of it anywhere?

Dear santa... plz plz plz get me some of this!

Ty.

Nice find. Very interesting.

reply to post by LucidDreamer85





Here you go. Not much to look at, however.

wonder if this could be used to improve contrast ratios on TVs one day

To think I thought Multicam was cool. Gotta love the future of nano tube technology.

On a side note: I ran a thread a while back about some new plate armor that uses the same essential nano tube tech.

Cool stuff. www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Junkheap


If I was the sort to have a few spare million I would get my entire damned wardrobe replaced, and I am not even nearly kidding.

I have a nickname in my home town. It is Ghost. The reason for this,is that for some reason, when my friends and I arrange to meet up in town to go for a beer, no one ever sees me comming. Over the years I have come to enjoy that moniker, and I guess if one is going to have a nickname like that, one ought to live up to it, and be as spookily invisible as possible!

The other thing is that I like the idea of being just as hard to spot under night vision as I would be to the naked eye, when the night time falls. Not as if I NEED that, but it would be cool. Of course, I would need to be richer than heck to make that material affordable, but awesome stuff all the same.

reply to post by projectvxn


Sounds like it may have an Achilles heel. I'm not sure what, but it seems like the right light wave might mess everything up. Maybe black light?

reply to post by Evolutionsend


Black light isn't really black light. It's low intensity UV. Which would be absorbed by this material.

reply to post by projectvxn


I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of light wave would illuminate a material like this. Probably like a Christmas tree. More research is needed.

reply to post by Evolutionsend


I'm guessing radar might be able to. As radio waves are slightly different.