Scanning electron microscope images show a tank etched out of silicon, with and without a carbon nanotube coating (top row). When the same structures are viewed under white light with an optical microscope (bottom row), the nanotube coating camouflages the tank structure against a black background. Image: L. J. Guo et al, University of Michigan/Applied Physics Letters |
Carbon
nanotubes, tiny cylinders composed of one-atom-thick carbon lattices,
have gained fame as one of the strongest materials known to science. Now
a group of researchers from the University of Michigan is taking
advantage of another one of carbon nanotubes’ unique properties, the low
refractive index of low-density aligned nanotubes, to demonstrate a new
application: making 3D objects appear as nothing more than a flat,
black sheet.
The
refractive index of a material is a measure of how much that material
slows down light, and carbon nanotube “forests” have a low index of
refraction very close to that of air. Since the two materials affect the
passage of light in similar ways, there is little reflection and
scattering of light as it passes from air into a layer of nanotubes.
The
Michigan team realized they could use this property to visually hide
the structure of objects. As described in the AIP’s journal Applied Physics Letters,
the scientists manufactured a 3-D image of a tank out of silicon. When
the image was illuminated with white light, reflections revealed the
tank’s contours, but after the researchers grew a forest of carbon
nanotubes on top of the tank, the light was soaked up by the tank’s
coating, revealing nothing more than a black sheet.
By
absorbing instead of scattering light, carbon nanotube coatings could
cloak an object against a black background, such as that of deep space,
the researchers note. In such cases the carbon nanotube forest “acts as a
perfect magic black cloth that can completely conceal the 3-D structure
of the object,” the researchers write.
