The darkest material can turn anything into a 'black hole'

NEW YORK (Reuters) - British scientists found a new application of the world's darkest material - a paint spray that absorbs 99.8 percent of light, turning everything into a black hole.

Vantablack, the world's darkest material, is capable of absorbing 99.96% of visible, ultraviolet and infrared light. Scientists at Surrey NanoSystems, which manufactures Vantablack, are constantly exploring ways to increase the blackness of the material. In 2016, they announced that no spectrum in the world could measure the amount of light absorbed.

The world's darkest material Vantablack.

"Even when a high-powered laser is projected onto the Vantablack, light is swallowed and nothing is reflected back to the viewer," the team said.

Surrey NanoSystems continues to research and launch a spray that allows the Vantablack to be applied to all surfaces. They say the Vantablack spray is not "black" with the original material, but it also has the ability to block 99.8% of visible, ultraviolet and infrared light.

In theory, this is not a paint. It is a special coating made out of millions of carbon nanotubes, each about 20 nanometers in length and 14-50 microns in diameter (1 nanometer equivalent to 0.001 microns). Therefore, a surface area of about one centimeter square may hold up to one billion nanotubes. When light hits the surface, they will pass through the carbon nanotube, but then get stuck inside and can not reflect back.

According to scientists at Surrey NanoSystems, they studied the Vantablack S-VIS spray to turn everything into "black holes . " The application of the invention is as wide as camouflage, making objects invisible.