Here's what happens when you shine a laser on the blackest material ever made (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you shine a light on Vantablack? ›

I'm not talking about black holes, which aren't visible to the naked eye, but a material called Vantablack — a synthetic compound developed by British company Surrey NanoSystems to be the blackest material ever. Vantablack absorbs 99.96% of the light that strikes its surface.

A video released last year by Surrey's scientists shows a “new development of the Vantablack process… a coating so black that our spectrometers can't measure it!” When a laser pointer is aimed at the Vantablack-coated surface, it vanishes completely, as if no light were touching it at all.

The blackest material in the world is called Vantablack. Vantablack stands for "Vertically Aligned NanoTube Array black." It is a substance made of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes that can absorb up to 99.965% of visible light, making it one of the darkest materials known to date.

Vantablack absorbs up to 99.965% of visible light and can be created at 400 °C (752 °F). NASA had previously developed a similar substance that was grown at 750 °C (1,380 °F), which required materials to be more heat resistant than Vantablack.

Avoid contact with skin and eyes.

Black 4.0 - 99.95%. So in other words, Black 4.0 'just a paint' is imperceptible from Vantablack using human vision, and the Anish Kapoor thing was just a publicity stunt? Looking at it the other way, Black 4.0 reflects 0.05% of the light, and Vantablack 0.035%. So Black 4.0 reflects about 40% more light.

The effect is reminiscent of Vantablack, a light absorbing material made from carbon nanotubes. Wild applications of Vantablack are well documented, from cartoon holes in museums to other cars, like this BMW.

Because Vantablack is not produced as paint or pigment in the traditional sense, NanoSystems says it is “generally not suitable for use in art due to the way in which it's made.” A form of the substance that can be sprayed onto surfaces, called Vantablack S-VIS, requires “specialist application,” the company says.

There are a few reasons why Acktar black is generally considered to be a more affordable option than Vantablack: Firstly, Acktar black is made from inorganic materials, which tend to be less expensive than carbon nanotubes, the primary material used in Vantablack.

Vantablack S-VIS and S-IR coatings are not supplied to private individuals. Many Vantablack S-VIS / S-IR applications do not require an export license. Vantablack VBx2. 3 does not require an export licence, but it is not sold to the general public as it requires professional spray systems and training to apply.

Why is Vantablack expensive? ›

Unfortunately, you can't just go out and buy Vantablack. It's grown using a patented process that can take up to two days and, ounce for ounce, it's more expensive than diamonds and gold. For more, watch Living Colour.

Black holes are the darkest things in our universe because they emit no light whatsoever in any wavelength. The reason there are no images of black holes themselves is because it is a fact of their physics that they cannot be seen (The image above is an artists conception).

Vantablack releases incoming radiation as heat—a principle familiar to anyone who has worn a black T-shirt on a summer day—but it does not reflect light.

Some consider white to be a color, because white light comprises all hues on the visible light spectrum. And many do consider black to be a color, because you combine other pigments to create it on paper. But in a technical sense, black and white are not colors, they're shades. They augment colors.

Vantablack releases incoming radiation as heat—a principle familiar to anyone who has worn a black T-shirt on a summer day—but it does not reflect light. This gives it an uncanny “matte black” appearance.

This stuff is the blackest black. It is so black that it makes reality look Photoshopped. Perception of depth and dimensionality disappears into a scotoma of darkness. You look at Vantablack, but nothing looks back at you.

Because Vantablack is not produced as paint or pigment in the traditional sense, NanoSystems says it is “generally not suitable for use in art due to the way in which it's made.” A form of the substance that can be sprayed onto surfaces, called Vantablack S-VIS, requires “specialist application,” the company says.

Black, as a color, actually doesn't absorb light. Black, as a color, only absorbs visible light, so many black objects appear light colored or even “white” under infrared light or even UV light. What happens when white light hits something that absorbs all colors except red, green, and blue?