The world's blackest material can make objects disappear

Vantablack is a special coating that reflects almost no light, making objects painted with this material appear to disappear.

Vantablack makes 3D objects almost disappear

Vantablack was first created in 2014 and became the world's blackest material, capable of absorbing 99.96% of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light, according to Live Science.

Vantablack is not a paint, dye or fibre, but a special coating designed to have non-reflective properties, according to Surrey NanoSystems, the company that makes Vantablack.

From the first development, the researchers gradually increased the blackness of the material. A new version of Vantablack is so black that no spectrometer can measure the amount of light absorbed by Vantablack, the team said.

A version of Vantablack called Vantablack S-VIS is now capable of absorbing 99.8 percent of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light, enough to make a sharp 3D object look like a black hole.

Vantablack's near-perfect black color is created from millions of carbon nanotubes. Each nanotube is about 20 nanometers in diameter (about 3,500 times smaller than the width of a human hair) and about 14 - 50 microns long (1 micron = 0.000001 m). There are about 1 billion nanotubes on a surface area of ​​1 cm2.

When exposed to a “forest” of nanotubes, light passes through the tiny spaces between the tubes and is quickly absorbed when it collides with the nanotubes. Thanks to its ability to absorb light, Vantablack can be used to complement infrared cameras and sensors, scientific instruments, and to enhance the aesthetics of luxury products.

Although the product's current applications are limited because the nanotube structure is susceptible to impacts that change its function, this material was used on a European satellite launched in December 2015, with the task of measuring the positions of stars, according to ABC.

According to VNE