Vantablack

(CNN)Touted as the darkest man-made substance in the world, Vantablack is so uncomfortably black the human eye can't quite decipher what it is seeing.

It is thought to be the closest thing to a black hole we will ever experience.

That's because Vantablack is not a color, it's the almost complete absence of color.

Since this super black material was first developed by Surrey NanoSystems three years ago, the British firm has been flooded with inquiries from designers, architects and aerospace engineers -- and even people who want to wrap themselves in it or eat it.

Part of the appeal of Vantablack is that it absorbs 99.96% of the light that hits its surface.


Darkest material on Earth will create a 'schism in space' for Winter Olympics
By Temujin Doran and Katy Scott, CNN
Updated 12:13 PM ET, Wed November 22, 2017

Vantablack absorbs 99.96% of the light that hits its surface
The makers say they have been inundated with requests to use the material
It will be used in a building for the 2018 Winter Olympics
(CNN)Touted as the darkest man-made substance in the world, Vantablack is so uncomfortably black the human eye can't quite decipher what it is seeing.

It is thought to be the closest thing to a black hole we will ever experience.

That's because Vantablack is not a color, it's the almost complete absence of color.

Since this super black material was first developed by Surrey NanoSystems three years ago, the British firm has been flooded with inquiries from designers, architects and aerospace engineers -- and even people who want to wrap themselves in it or eat it.

Part of the appeal of Vantablack is that it absorbs 99.96% of the light that hits its surface.
"When you have no light reflected back to the viewer, you see nothing, so your brain paints it as black," Ben Jensen, co-founder of Surrey NanoSystems tells CNN.

When used as a coating, Vantablack appears to change the dimensions of an object, rendering 3D objects completely flat.

One square centimeter of Vantablack consists of about one billion carbon nanotubes spaced perfectly apart. When light comes in it is bounced around and ultimately trapped and converted to heat.
"Carbon nanotubes are like very, very long blades of grass," explains Jensen. "Now you imagine if you were a human walking around in grass 1,000 feet tall how little light would get down to you. It's like that but on a very tiny scale."

The nanotubes are "grown" under powerful lamps that bring the surface temperature to 430 degrees Celsius or higher.