An undated handout photo shows a National Institute of Standards and Technology reflectance standard (top to bottom), a sample of the new darkest material and a piece of glassy carbon taken under a flash light illumination. US researchers said on Tuesday they have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light. Made from tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, this material is almost 30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness. And the material is close to the long-sought ideal black, which could absorb all colors of light and reflect none. [Agencies]