New light trap material

[Jim Andrada]

This stuff looks interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack

[Jim Graves]

Does sound interesting ... absorbing 99.965% of light ... and very low outgassing ... .

But then the article goes on to say ... "As of 2014 production is being scaled up to satisfy needs of buyers in the aerospace and defense sectors ... ." ... that doesn't sound like it'll fit into a photographer's budget.

[Daniel Stone]

Reading through the wiki article, I noticed that they mentioned charcoal only reflecting ~4% of light hitting it. A friend of mine did exactly that some years ago, on the inside of a large telescope he built. He initially painted the inside of the tube flat black, but found that it was still too dark. He realized that even with a flat/matte surface, it still had too smooth of a surface. So he ground up some charcoal briquettes into a fine(but not too fine) dust, and mixed that into the remaining flat black paint. Well I guess it worked. He did have to allow for outgassing, but he said it worked very well(his words). The more irregular surface helped to keep light from bouncing around in the tube?

This vantablack material looks like fun, I wonder how flexible it is once cured?

[Jmarmck]

looking at the photo really helped me see just how dirty this monitor really is. The idea of light bouncing around till it becomes heat is interesting.

[Drew Wiley]

The bigger question would be how much micro-texture this has, and therefore its tendency to attract and retain dust. At one point in time, Hassie coated the inside of their camera bodies with something they called papilli, basically a back texture to reduce reflections, which otherwise was hell to keep clean. I don't know which is worse - flare or dust. I wouldn't worry too much about aerospace budgets. After all, that is what lies behind routine things today like optical multicoating. Just depends if it really works and if those who hold the patent find a suitable market niche.

[Jim Andrada]

Maybe they could engineer it so it only attracts BLACK dust.

[AtlantaTerry]

Maybe they could engineer it so it only attracts BLACK dust.

But, not black holes. ;)