Black Silicon Discovery Could Change Digital Photography, Night Vision Forever

It started with a Harvard physicist acting on a hunch. It ended up producing a new material, called black silicon, that could have a broad impact on technologies ranging from ultrasensitive sensors to photovoltaic cells. Black silicon was discovered because Dr Mazur started thinking outside the boundaries of the research he was doing in the late 1990s. His research group had been financed by the Army Research Organisation to explore catalytic reactions on metallic surfaces