There is talk of blacker material than ever in the press release accompanying a new study published in Applied Materials & Interfaces.
The MIT researchers report that they have developed a material that is “10 times blacker than anything previously reported”.It is a material made of carbon nanotubes placed vertically that the same press release compares to a “confused forest of small trees”.

These nanotubes were fixed on an aluminum foil etched with chlorine. The result is a film that can reflect 99.96% of the incoming light at any wavelength, which in turn makes this film a material that in our eyes appears darker than the darkest black we could imagine.

For the moment the film has been used in an artwork produced by Brian Wardle, an aeronautics and astronautics expert at MIT, and by the artist Diemut Strebe. It is a yellow diamond coated with this ultra black film.

Any practical applications? According to the researchers the uses of this material could be multiple.
For example it could be used in optical blinkers to reduce glare or in space telescopes to locate exoplanets hiding more efficiently the light of the stars around which they turn.