an ultrablack coating<\/a> that absorbs more than 99.9% of visible light while meeting key durability standards for automotive coatings. This new coating could be used in the production of luxury vehicles (Matter Light 2026, DOI: 10.1016\/j.matlit.2026.100015).<\/p>\n\u201cDeep black finishes have long been the premium choice and signature color for luxury cars due to their elegant appearance, powerful visual impact, and luxurious undertone,\u201d says Zhiwei Liu, a research chemist in color technology at the Nipsea Group and the lead author of the study. Automotive companies, he says, have been actively pursuing \u201cmass-processable ultrablack coating solutions with extreme blackness.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2014 Surrey NanoSystems developed Vantablack, a coating made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, hollow cylinders of carbon atoms that are only a few nanometers in diameter and absorb nearly all incoming visible light. The material, which gives objects an almost 2D appearance, became famous beyond the scientific community when artist Anish Kapoor acquired exclusive artistic rights to use it.<\/p>\n
Five years later, BMW presented a Vantablack-coated concept car whose \u201cblack hole\u201d appearance drew widespread attention. But Vantablack also has practical limitations, as coatings based on nanotube forests are delicate, as well as difficult and expensive to manufacture at industrial scale.<\/p>\n
For ultrablack materials, balancing optical performance with manufacturability and durability is a challenge. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to have it both ways, super black and super robust,\u201d says John Lehman, physicist and senior research scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.<\/p>\n
Rather than relying solely on fragile vertical carbon-nanotube forests, the new study combines the nanotubes with conventional carbon-black pigment. Strong interactions between the two carbon materials cause the carbon-black particles to arrange themselves along the nanotubes in what the authors describe as a \u201cconnecting-the-dots\u201d structure. The resulting coating develops a rough landscape of microscopic peaks and valleys that act as optical traps, with light entering these structures and undergoing multiple scattering events before escaping. This topology, combined with the already strong light-absorbing properties of carbon black, enables the coating to absorb more than 99.9% of visible light.<\/p>\n
Researchers emphasize that this combination can be made with standard industrial milling equipment and that the coating can be applied using conventional automotive spray-coating techniques. It also passes humidity, water-resistance, and adhesion tests, making it more applicable than its predecessors.<\/p>\n
Whether the coating is truly the blackest black may be difficult to determine. \u201cThe biggest challenge, once you get to that level of blackness, is actually measuring it,\u201d says Lehman, who studies ultrablack coatings that can suppress stray reflections in optical instruments and sensing systems. \u201cThat\u2019s as difficult as making the coating itself when you\u2019re talking about four nines,\u201d he says, referring to the reflection ratio of 99.99%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 In Douglas Adams\u2019s science fiction novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the narrator describes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6299,2358,217549,59,2303,57213,217550,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-645790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-automotive","tag-carbon","tag-coating","tag-gb","tag-materials","tag-nanomaterials","tag-nanotubes","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}