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Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by the8472 on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:14PM (#20974465)
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by anon1m0us on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:44PM (#20975247)
Can someone please explain to me the race to the blackest black?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by pvarangot on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:54PM (#20975278)
I'm not an expert on applications of black stuff, but having ultra black coatings can help get away with complex optical designs where you would have flares or loose resolution to scattered light inside your tube assembly. Also an optical design that's difficult to pull off mechanically may be easier to manufacture if you just use this coatings inside the tube and on the baffling.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by gabrielbln on Sunday September 15, 2019 @04:35AM (#20976205)
Oh god. We developed the blackest tshirt in the world. So I know much more about this subject than what is possibly good for my mental health lol

I made a comparison video about the ultra blacks that are freely available https://youtu.be/ElVzQ2M6vh0

Regarding VB and the MIT stuff, they are hi-tech and useful for optical applications like space telescopes.

Interestingly, the creator of Vantablack told me that there are also some export restrictions due to it's possible usefulness in stealth technology where you want to get rid of stray light.

Let me know if you have additional questions

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by Ao7bei3s on Sunday September 15, 2019 @10:01PM (#20980562)
How quickly does it wash out?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by jnurmine on Sunday September 15, 2019 @09:47AM (#20977169)
I'm wondering if one use could be solar ovens.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by 2_listerine_pls on Sunday September 15, 2019 @10:35AM (#20977375)
Search for MIT's solar sponge.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by tbabb on Saturday September 14, 2019 @11:47PM (#20975465)
While it may or may not be the primary motivation for research, I'd speculate that it's great for making stealth satellites.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by exabrial on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:54PM (#20975275)
Painting your car in it to avoid lidar
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by stedaniels on Sunday September 15, 2019 @02:28AM (#20975883)
Because you want to make it easier for people and autonomous vehicles to crash into you?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by EGreg on Saturday September 14, 2019 @11:04PM (#20975315)
Haha would this even be legal?

Nevermind - it’s not even feasible

https://www.quora.com/Lets-say-Im-a-rich-racer-who-wants-to-...

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by chirau on Sunday September 15, 2019 @01:19AM (#20975706)
It can be done and it is legal. In fact, it has been done...

https://www.bmw.com/en/design/the-bmw-X6-vantablack-car.html

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by wruza on Sunday September 15, 2019 @03:23AM (#20976028)
With all that flashing and shaking I cannot perceive anything with or without VB. Ads guys today lost their roof completely.

https://www.google.ru/search?q=bmw+vantablack&tbm=isch

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by BoorishBears on Sunday September 15, 2019 @12:00AM (#20975507)
It can be done for limited production, but it doesn't fully hide from LIDAR

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-x6-vantablack-paint-c...

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by jdc on Sunday September 15, 2019 @12:03AM (#20975515)
From the CNET article:

>> Typically, the lidar unit can spot things from more than 328 feet away.

>> In this case, the company said the darkest of dark BMWs would need to be about 72 feet away before the lasers and ambient light register the moving black hole.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by lgats on Sunday September 15, 2019 @08:33PM (#20980286)
LIDAR is most effective at a distance from the license plate, headlight, and chrome reflective parts of a car. There is a laser absorbing product called VEIL made specifically for reducing these reflections.

https://www.stealthveil.com/faq/

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by OrgNet on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @03:50PM (#20999339)
because that ultra-black looks blue? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tVaJVtxMYE&t=0m11s
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by overcast on Saturday September 14, 2019 @11:56PM (#20975500)
I can't imagine the temperature of that car after sitting in the sun for an hour.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by SamReidHughes on Sunday September 15, 2019 @12:07AM (#20975525)
Basically the same as a 99% absorbent black.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by rightbyte on Sunday September 15, 2019 @04:28AM (#20976192)
It radiates more too. The steady state temperature of the steel plates will be the same as white paint, right?

I assume the AC has to work a little bit more during driving though.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by gameswithgo on Sunday September 15, 2019 @12:51AM (#20975629)
vr headsets could benefit: less glare
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by c3534l on Sunday September 15, 2019 @01:39AM (#20975759)
It's cool.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by mkoryak on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:52PM (#20975271)
black is the new black
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by all_blue_chucks on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:04PM (#20974428)
Well this is certainly bad news for anyone who invested $35k in a vantablack wristwatch: https://www.h-moser.com/en/collection/1801-1200-endeavour-pe...
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by arcticbull on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:24PM (#20974506)
In my opinion, if you could afford $35,000 for a Vantablack wrist watch, you can afford another $35,000 for this one too haha. I doubt many of those purchasers were on the bubble.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by all_blue_chucks on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:59PM (#20975296)
High end watches aren't priced like regular consumer goods; you can resell them for close to (and sometimes more) than you paid for them, so the "cost" is much much less than the price.

What's most interesting about this watch is the steel/vanta combo costs the same as the solid gold version without vanta. Apparently just that small bit of vanta costs more than a large chunk of gold right now.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by SamReidHughes on Sunday September 15, 2019 @12:10AM (#20975533)
Not if you pay MSRP; for H. Moser you’ll take a big loss. The material value of the gold is also really small.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by contravariant on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:58PM (#20974874)
It's a bit weird to demonstrate the colour of vantablack by adding a shine to it.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by tempestn on Saturday September 14, 2019 @09:42PM (#20975053)
I was thinking the same thing. You can see how they must have felt a black circle on a screen doesn't look too impressive, but this is a rather backwards way of dealing with that. (I would have added shine to the background and watch body but not the face...)
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by SamReidHughes on Sunday September 15, 2019 @12:11AM (#20975536)
There is a piece of domed sapphire in front of it with an imperfect anti reflective coating.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by lostgame on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:35PM (#20975222)
I thought I had been sent to the wrong web site to be honest.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by gibolt on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:10PM (#20974451)
It is stated to be an order of magnitude better across the broad spectrum than other broad absorbers.

I wonder if there are any narrow bands that it specifically excels at compared to existing materials, and how big the difference is.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by robocat on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:56PM (#20974863)
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by kzrdude on Sunday September 15, 2019 @08:28AM (#20976931)
They are potentially misleading by connecting the dots in that way. (The classic, it implies data where there is nothing.)
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by hn_throwaway_99 on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:17PM (#20974480)
There is a graph right at the top of the abstract that shows the reflectance of this new material compared to Vantablack across a number of wavelengths.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by umvi on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:23PM (#20974501)
But can the human eye tell the difference?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by 2_listerine_pls on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:25PM (#20974511)
If we were to shine a light into vantablack in a dark room ~0.04% would be reflected but it would be enough make the object visible. So, it is possible to differentiate both paints in those conditions.

https://petapixel.com/2016/07/25/human-eye-sensitive-can-det...

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by perl4ever on Sunday September 15, 2019 @05:53PM (#20979696)
Somebody went and took a picture of the vantablack car that wasn't set up to make it look dark and showed it appeared to be a dull gray. There's a very high degree of latitude in how you take pictures of something, and the 0% brightness level in the output can be anything you like. The human eye is adaptive, as well, so it probably wouldn't be all that impressive in person either.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by 2_listerine_pls on Sunday September 15, 2019 @08:43PM (#20980310)
The car looked gray because it had a protective coating on top, thus you get some amount of diffuse/specular reflection from the camera's flash and surroundings.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by samstave on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:58PM (#20974641)
Serious question:

How do these materials both perform against radar?

Will we be seeing them as stealth paints on planes or satellites?

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by big_chungus on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:14PM (#20974705)
Follow-up serious question: if I paint my car with this stuff, can a policeman tag me with his radar gun? If I wear clothes impregnated with it, would it confuse a "smart" surveillance camera? I'm also thinking if I used it as war paint, a facial recognition cam would probably be awfully confused by what appears to be a hole in my face.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by awodol on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:47PM (#20974827)
For the car case, usually police shoot their radar at your license plate since it's a flat reflective surface anyways.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by tempestn on Saturday September 14, 2019 @09:45PM (#20975069)
And at headlights otherwise. But if your car has popup headlights and no front plate, and you paint it vantablack, you'd probably be close to invisible to police LIDAR (laser) guns. I'm not sure what the reflectivity of this stuff in the radio spectrum is though.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by samstave on Sunday September 15, 2019 @07:15PM (#20980022)
Do the black and yellow California plates still possess reflective properties?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by samstave on Monday September 16, 2019 @08:53PM (#20990102)
Id like a baseball cap, painted with vanta black, but with a cheese-cloth style net also painted with vanta black, which can be worn down like a bee-keepers hat, such that facial recognition cant be used against me.

Also, i am anouncing right now my freedom to destroy any facial recognition cameras i come across. Its my fist amendment right to not be supressed with facial recognition because i am free to say anything i want, and using facial recognition is a violation of my first amendment rights.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by samstave on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:21PM (#20974736)
I love this line of thinking!!

Also, if i were to dimple an an entire plane’s body like a golf ball, and paint it with this... how stealthy would that be?

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by bouncedReflect on Saturday September 14, 2019 @10:59PM (#20975293)
Oh, about as stealthy as a metal golf ball, painted black?

Put it this way: If you shine a flashlight at a cosmetic hand mirror, does the flashlight shine back and hit you in the eyes? Now tilt the mirror so that the flashlight doesn't blind you.

Stealth surfaces are supposed to work like a tilted mirror.

Now imagine a polished chrome golf ball. If you shine a flashlight at it, you'll still catch a bounce from the flashlight reflection, even if the surface is dimpled.

Compare the chrome golf ball's performance to an icosahedron faceted with mirrors. The faceted platonic solid is less likely to shine the flashlight back at your eyes, depending on it's angle of rotation. And a dodecahedron would perform even better.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by gabrielbln on Sunday September 15, 2019 @04:38AM (#20976214)
Thats not exactly accurate. Those nanotube coatings are optimised so it traps the light entirely
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by coretx on Sunday September 15, 2019 @04:45AM (#20976235)
Just send the "reflection" back at the donuts connoisseur before the real reflection does and your objective has been reached. Ready made devices for exactly this purpose exist and are dirt cheap. While we're at it, the photonic equivalent can be beaten by means of special reflective coating. One that whites out the entire photo using the received "flash". Needless to say, this is also widely available & dirt cheap.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by kart23 on Saturday September 14, 2019 @09:51PM (#20975084)
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/76278/woul...

google my friend. There are other specially formulated paints that aim to absorb the correct wavelength.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by samstave on Sunday September 15, 2019 @06:28PM (#20979825)
Awesome read, thank you

Now I’m envisioning a system where the spy drone sows down significantly and little machanized graphene “hairs” stand up all over its body to absorb any wavelengths of radar it wants to avoid...

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by ianai on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:22PM (#20974495)
What are the hopeful uses for making ever more absorbing black materials?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by the8472 on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:34PM (#20974544)
reducing stray photons in instruments, you only want those that go through your lens array, not those bouncing off the housing.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by samstave on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:04PM (#20974664)
It would be interesting to test performance of a single fibre optic thread pulled through and coated with this to see the performance output.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by WizardAustralis on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:23PM (#20974744)
While not the most technology advanced use, I think this stuff could make for a great solar powered water heater.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by tedunangst on Saturday September 14, 2019 @09:46PM (#20975072)
Are the incremental improvements over regular black paint meaningful?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by agumonkey on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:42PM (#20974815)
Very important these days. Depending on full cost of this material.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by donw on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:34PM (#20974545)
I'll lay down a guess that having a better understanding of EM spectrum absorption -- in any wavelength -- likely has all kinds of applications. Better stealth technology, improved shielding for EM emitters, and possibly improved reflectors as well.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by tejtm on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:40PM (#20974800)
the inside of telescopes (and other optics)
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by baybal2 on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:40PM (#20974565)
If it emits in near IR it will make a perfect conversion medium for silicon solar cells.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by intuitionist on Sunday September 15, 2019 @12:02AM (#20975511)
trolling Anish Kapoor?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by cordite on Sunday September 15, 2019 @10:56AM (#20977448)
Could such a material be put behind (and be protected by) glass and still have the desired properties?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by ironfootnz on Sunday September 15, 2019 @04:14AM (#20976152)
O wonder if they could use this to absorb sun light and transform into heat and generate electricity. Looking into the absorption rates in the chart, it’s clear that it would be 30x more efficient than solar panels these days.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by DoctorOetker on Sunday September 15, 2019 @07:32AM (#20976766)
solar panels are way more efficient than 3.333... % , so no, nothing can be 30x more efficient than solar panels these days.
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by marcosdumay on Sunday September 15, 2019 @11:19AM (#20977584)
For heating a surface you'll want a material that absorbs the solar spectrum, but is extremely reflective on the heat spectrum. Optimizing the material absorbtivity does not lead to much gain, while optimizing the reflectivity leads to huge results.

This material absorbs every spectrum, what makes it really bad for that application.

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by christopoulos on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:48PM (#20974594)
Maybe we now can get true black on an LCD screen?
Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by 2_listerine_pls on Saturday September 14, 2019 @07:57PM (#20974636)
LCDs don't work like that, they block the back-light with polarization:

http://soft-matter.seas.harvard.edu/index.php/Phase_transiti...

Re:New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x da... by nine_k on Saturday September 14, 2019 @08:32PM (#20974777)
Maybe truer black on OLED screens, if OLEDs can be printed on a back plate like that.