E-Paper
'Blacker than black' metamaterial created
A "blacker than black" stuff has been created, which, according to scientists, is made of metamaterials that absorbs virtually all the light that hits it.
A "blacker than black" stuff has been created, which, according to scientists, is made of metamaterials that absorbs virtually all the light that hits it.
Metamaterials exhibit optical properties not normally found in nature.
They consist of a regular array of two or more tiny components, each smaller than the wavelengths of the light they interact with.
It is this array-like internal structure that gives them their unusual properties.
Evgenii Narimanov of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, realised that it should be possible to design a metamaterial with the right internal structure to absorb virtually all the electromagnetic radiation in a particular range.
An object made of such a material would effectively be perfectly black.
In fact, ordinary black objects always reflect a little light.
In collaboration with Narimanov, Mikhail Noginov and colleagues at Norfolk State University in Virginia have now created such a perfectly black material.
