MIT Material 10x Blacker Than Any Other: 99.995% Light Absorption

[gmalcolm77]

Summary: MIT researchers have created a material that is 10x blacker than any other material ever recorded. The foil captures at least 99.995% of incoming light.

Does this mean that there is practically no EM re-radiated?

 

[BvU]

For a certain range of wavelengths: yes !

 

[davenn]

The foil captures at least 99.995% of incoming light.

Does this mean that there is practically no EM re-radiated?

those statements need to be qualified.
As @BvU said, "for certain wavelengths, yes"
There's probably still lots of IR being radiated and that is still EM
All that energy being absorbed has to go somewhere

 

[gmalcolm77]

those statements need to be qualified.
As @BvU said, "for certain wavelengths, yes"
There's probably still lots of IR being radiated and that is still EM
All that energy being absorbed has to go somewhere

Yea, I figured so, otherwise it's energy would eventually be infinite. The MIT quote I believe is a bit misleading. Thanks.

 

[berkeman]

Yea, I figured so, otherwise it's energy would eventually be infinite. The MIT quote I believe is a bit misleading. Thanks.

I'm not sure why you aren't responding to my PM requesting that you post a link to a source to help us out, but I did the Google search and here is one such link:

http://news.mit.edu/2019/blackest-black-material-cnt-0913

 

[gmalcolm77]

I'm not sure why you aren't responding to my PM requesting that you post a link to a source to help us out, but I did the Google search and here is one such link:

Haven't figured that out yet. Just a dumb old guy interested in science. Please forgive.

 

[berkeman]

No worries. I only had asked in my private message to you that you post a link in your thread so everybody didn't have to go off searching on their own trying to find the original paper so that they could respond well. I did the search now and posted the link, so all is good.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Summary: MIT researchers have created a material that is 10x blacker than any other material ever recorded. The foil captures at least 99.995% of incoming light.

Does this mean that there is practically no EM re-radiated?

It really means that practically none is reflected. But it would need to get pretty hot before significant levels of thermal wavelengths would be emitted in the visible range.

 

[DrClaude]

It really means that practically none is reflected. But it would need to get pretty hot before significant levels of thermal wavelengths would be emitted in the visible range.

By Kirchhoff's law, it won't emit much in the visible range in any case.