Super black
Highly light-absorbent surface treatment
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Through Black, Paint and Phosphorus
Technology
The technology to create super black involves chemically etching a nickel-phosphorus alloy.
Applications of super black are in specialist optical instruments for reducing unwanted reflections. The disadvantage of this material is its low optical thickness, as it is a surface treatment. As a result, infrared light of a wavelength longer than a few micrometers penetrates through the dark layer and has much higher reflectivity. The reported spectral dependence increases from about 1% at 3 μm to 50% at 20 μm.
In 2009, a competitor to the super black material, Vantablack, was developed based on carbon nanotubes. It has a relatively flat reflectance in a wide spectral range.
In 2011, NASA and the US Army began funding research in the use of nanotube-based super black coatings in sensitive optics. Nanotube-based superblack arrays and coatings have recently become commercially available.