Art and science collide in pursuit of the deepest black
Research findings are rarely black and white but this one is a genuine exception. Scientists in the US claim to have created the blackest material ever recorded.
The light-snaring creation a miniature forest of carbon nanotubes grown on blackened aluminium foil captures 99.995% of light falling onto it. Since virtually none is reflected back to the observer’s eye, it looks like a peculiar void.
“Blackest black” made its public debut in September at the New York Stock Exchange, in an art installation,
Diemut Strebe, artist-in-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Art, Science and Technology, used it to coat a $2m vivid yellow diamond, rendering the gem virtually invisible against a black backdrop.
In 2016, the sculptor Anish Kapoor caused uproar when he acquired exclusive rights for the artistic use of Vantablack, a similar material and then the blackest known substance. The arrival of an even darker prospect may refresh the debate on who has access to science’s ever-expanding palette.
Brian Wardle, an aeronautics professor at MIT, and his former research colleague Kehang Cui, now at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, were trying to grow carbon nanotubes on electrically conducting materials and by chance cultivated them on aluminium foil soaked in seawater. Cui was so struck by how black the material looked when it came out of the oven that he decided to measure its optical properties.
As the pair reported in the journal ACS-Applied Materials & Interfaces, their creation captured more light than Vantablack, a carbon nanotube material launched by Surrey NanoSystems in 2014 (its prefix derives from vertically aligned nanotube array).
The origin of both colours is the same nothing to do with pigment and everything to do with physical structure. When light hits the material, it bounces around the tiny tubes and is mostly absorbed. Very little escapes, hence the apparent blackness.
US cosmologist John Mather suggests the light-cancelling material could be used to shield space telescopes from stray starlight and researchers are also making the production process available to artists for noncommercial projects.
Surrey NanoSystems defends its exclusive tie-up with Sir Anish on two fronts: the delicate material needs specialist application, and potential military uses mean the need for an export licence.
Still, that monopoly triggered a gloriously eye-popping feud with another British artist, Stuart Semple, who saw red at a stitch-up. Semple retaliated by creating a bright pink pigment made available to anyone except his rival. When he acquired the pink contraband, Sir Anish coated his middle finger in it and posted an impolite gesture on Instagram, captioned “Up yours #pink”. Semple then crowdfunded the creation of an ultrablack pigment.
The MIT work, Semple says, is amazing but, like Vantablack, it is not practically usable. So why does Sir Anish’s monopoly rankle? “It reeks of being elitist and that bothers me massively. It’s telling people they’re not good enough or rich enough to be involved in art. We wanted to come up with a superblack that anyone could use. I’m happy: it’s the most democratic paint ever made and is as good as a black ever needs to be.”
In fact, pursuit of the perfect black, scientists and artists are chasing opposites. Astronomers covet blackness because it brings clarity to observations; artists because it confounds, deceives and provokes.
For one Kapoor installation,
Descent into Limbo, a 2.5m hole was dug and painted black inside. To the casual observer, it looked like a dark circle on the floor and one visitor fell in. A perilous voyage into the art of darkness./