Researchers at the University of British Columbia are staring into an abyss of their own making – a new "super-black" material that absorbs almost all visible light that reaches it. The team stumbled onto the discovery quite by accident, but they already see potential commercial applications on the horizon. Forestry professor Philip Evans and PhD student Kenny Cheng were experimenting with high-energy plasma etching, trying to make wood more water-repellant by engraving a microscopic texture similar to that of the moisture-shedding lotus leaf.
But when they used the same etching technique on the wood's end grain, everything went dark – extremely dark. Rather than discarding the wood, they sent a sample to Texas A&M University's department of physics and astronomy. Scientists there confirmed the specimen reflected less than one per cent of visible light, casting it into the rare category of "ultra-black" or "super-black" materials.
"Ultra-black or super-black material can absorb more than 99 per cent of the light that strikes it – significantly more so than normal black paint, which absorbs about 97.5 per cent of light," Evans said in a statement through the university. The UBC team has now trademarked the discovery, calling the material Nxylon after "Nyx," the Greek goddess of the night, and "xylon," the Greek word for wood.
Unlike other super-black materials, including Vantablack, which is comprised of carbon nanotubes, the UBC discovery is derived from basswood, a ren.