Maximizing laser light absorption

[drummerdimitri]

Hello people,

What object if any would be able to absorb all of the laser's energy in the form of heat?

I was thinking a black body would actually do this, but when I shine a laser beam at a black surface, the dot is much dimmer than if I were to shine the same beam on a white surface.

If in theory any object would be able to absorb all of that energy, would you not see a dot hitting the object at all?

Would it have no identifiable ending point and look similar to the end of the beam when lasing at night for example?

For some reason, I always had the impression that most black object only absorb a very small percentage of all the beam's energy. Am I right for thinking that?

Thanks!

 

[Blord]

A black body should absorb all incoming light. If not it wouldn't be called a black body.

You can read more interesting stuff here,
Black body - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[drummerdimitri]

A black body should absorb all incoming light. If not it wouldn't be called a black body.

You can read more interesting stuff here,
Black body - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I remember having studied black body radiation in high school, but I don't recall the teacher mentioning any non-theoretical object capable of absorbing all of a laser's energy.

Is there such an object that most of us own capable of doing such a thing?

 

[Cyparagon]

The operative word in the sentence "A black body is an idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation" is idealized.
To my knowledge, no such object exists besides black holes and anti lasers.

 

[BShanahan14rulz]

You can try to find a matte black anodized aluminum piece. Or you can deposit soot on something and see how well that absorbs. The results for me weren't too impressive, but I was just using a metal foil and soot from a wax candle flame.

 

[Bluefan]

Beam dumps have an optimized geometry to absorb as much of the incoming light. There has been quite some research to find the best "black" surface possible, shouldn't be that hard to find.