Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a nearly wavelength-independent optical reflection from an extremely rough carbon nanotube sample. The sample is made of a vertically aligned nanotube array, is a super dark material, and exhibits a near-perfect blackbody emission at $T=450\mathrm{K}–600\mathrm{K}$. No other material exhibits such optical properties, i.e., ultralow reflectance accompanied by a lack of wavelength scaling behavior. This observation is a result of the lowest ever measured reflectance ($R=0.0003$) of the sample over a broad infrared wavelength of $3\mathrm{\mu m}<\lambda <13\mathrm{\mu m}$. This discovery may be attributed to the unique interlocking surface of the nanotube array, consisting of both a global, large scale and a short-range randomness.

© 2011 Optical Society of America

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