As one of the darkest materials on earth, a carbon nanotube forest can absorb the entire visible range of electromagnetic waves more efficiently than any other known black material. A research team at ECE, led by Kenichi Takahata and Alireza Nojeh, has transformed areas of this very dark forest into micro mirrors.
By moving a tungsten rod through the carbon nanotube forest a pattern of bent “trees” can be made. In areas where material is bent, researchers observed mirror-like reflection; these processed areas showed an increase of the reflectivity of more than two orders of magnitude. These micro-mirrors are also flexible, unlike other micro-mirrors. Patterns contrasting the extreme black of unprocessed carbon nanotube forests with bent areas of micro mirrors have the potential for producing monolithically integrated reflector-absorber arrays in the material. These properties could contribute to flexible electronics design and nanophotonic chip design.
Read More:
Mirrors take root in pitch-black nanotube forest, published in NewScientist
Transforming carbon nanotube forest from darkest absorber to reflective mirror by Tanveer Saleh, Mehran Vahdani Moghaddam, Mohamed Sultan Mohamed Ali, Masoud Dahmardeh, Charles Alden Foell, Alireza Nojeh, and Kenichi Takahata, in Applied Physics Letters