比已知最黑的Vantablack还要黑的新物质

You might think you already know black – even super-black Vantablack, previously the blackest material known to science – but researchers just came up with a material that takes black to a new level of blackness.

你可能认为你已经知道了黑色——甚至是超级黑色的Vantablack，以前是科学界所知的最黑的物质——但是研究人员刚刚提出了一种材料，把黑色带到一个新的层次。

The new, as-yet-unnamed ultra-black material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), microscopic carbon strings that are a little like a fuzzy forest of tiny trees, according to the team behind the project.

据项目背后的团队介绍，这种尚未命名的新型超黑色材料，是由垂直排列的碳纳米管(CNT)制成的，这种微型碳链有点像一片模糊的小树林。

And here's the rub – this CNT material can absorb more than 99.995 percent of incoming light, beating the 99.96 percent that Vantablack is able to absorb.

这种碳纳米管材料能吸收99.995%以上的入射光，超过了Vantablack能吸收的99.96%。

"In other words, it reflected 10 times less light than all other superblack materials, including Vantablack," explains an MIT release.

麻省理工学院的一份报告解释说：“换句话说，它反射的光比所有其他超黑材料，包括Vantablack，少10倍。”

Like some of the best scientific discoveries, this record-setting black stuff was discovered by accident.

就像一些最好的科学发现一样，这种创纪录的黑色物质是偶然发现的。

The researchers were looking at ways to grow CNTs on electrically conductive materials like aluminium, and it was during these experiments that they noticed the blackness of the materials they were growing on specially treated aluminium foil.

研究人员正在寻找在导电材料(如铝)上生长碳纳米管的方法，正是在这些实验中，他们注意到了在经过特殊处理的铝箔上生长的材料的黑色。

"I remember noticing how black it was before growing carbon nanotubes on it, and then after growth, it looked even darker," says mechanical engineer Kehang Cui, from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. "So I thought I should measure the optical reflectance of the sample."

来自中国上海交通大学的机械工程师崔克航(音译)说:“我记得我注意到，在碳纳米管生长之前，它是多么黑，然后在生长之后，它看起来甚至更黑。”“所以我想我应该测量下样品的光学反射率。”

That's when the ultra-powerful light absorption properties were recorded – from every possible angle, the material soaked up virtually all the light directed at it.

这就是记录超强光吸收特性的时候——从每一个可能的角度来看，这种材料几乎吸收了所有指向它的光。

What's not clear is why the material is like this. It might be the way that the etched aluminium, on which the oxide layer is removed, combines with the carbon nanotubes in some way, but more research is going to be needed to know for sure.

不清楚这种材料的形成因素是怎样的，可能是去除氧化层的蚀刻铝以某种方式与碳纳米管结合的方式，一切还需要更多的研究才能确定。