Carbon nanowalls: the next step for physical manifestation of the black body coating

The optical properties of carbon nanowall (CNW) films in the visible range have been studied and reported for the first time. Depending on the film structure, ultra-low total reflectance up to 0.13% can be reached, which makes the CNW films a promising candidate for the black body-like coating, and thus for a wide range of applications as a light absorber. We have estimated important trends in the optical property variation from sample to sample, and identified the presence of edge states and domain boundaries in carbon nanowalls as well as the film mass density variation as the key factors. Also we demonstrated that at much lower film thickness and density than for a carbon nanotube forest the CNWs yield one order higher specific light absorption.