Radiation-soaking metamaterial puts black in the shade

FASHIONISTAS take note: this material really does deserve to be labelled the new black – it absorbs virtually all the light that hits it.

This “blacker than black” stuff is an example of a class of substances known as metamaterials, which exhibit optical properties not normally found in nature.

Metamaterials consist of a regular array of two or more tiny components, each smaller than the wavelengths of the light they interact with. It is this array-like internal structure that gives them their unusual properties.

Evgenii Narimanov of Purdue…