Vantablack is not a colour. It’s a substance that manifests as a black so deep and so dark that it seems to swallow both light and space.
Ben Jensen, founder and Chief Technical Officer of Surrey NanoSystems, invented the coatings, grown via chemical vapour deposition (CVD). They were publicly unveiled in July 2014, and eventually commercialised by the scientific team from Surrey NanoSystems.
Vantablack’s name comes from the acronym VANTA: Vertically Aligned NanoTube Arrays. These tiny carbon nanotubes, each about 3,500 times smaller than the width of a human hair, form a dense forest of microscopic tubes that trap light rather than reflecting it. When light hits the surface, it bounces around inside this forest until it’s almost completely absorbed. The result is extraordinary: Vantablack absorbs up to 99.965% of visible light, making even three-dimensional objects appear flat, featureless and surreal.
The science behind Vantablack is both simple and profound. Each nanotube acts like a miniature light trap – photons enter but can’t find a way out. Instead of scattering back to the human eye, as with ordinary pigments, the light is converted into heat. Because our visual perception depends on reflected light to interpret shapes and depth, objects coated in Vantablack lose their contours. A crumpled piece of aluminium foil covered in it, for instance, looks like a perfect void. It’s a material that makes form disappear – an optical illusion rooted in physics.
Vantablack was originally created for aerospace and defence applications. Its ability to absorb stray light made it ideal for reducing glare inside telescopes, cameras and satellite sensors – improving their accuracy when measuring faint stars or distant planets.
“Vantablack S-VIS” is a sprayable variant of Vantablack designed to extend usability to more complex shapes and surfaces, not just flat substrates in a CVD furnace.
Vantablack’s leap from laboratory to public consciousness came through controversy in the art world. In 2016, it was announced that the artist Anish Kapoor [RR4:13] had secured exclusive rights to use Vantablack in artistic works – a move that infuriated many in the creative community.
Other artists, most notably Stuart Semple, responded by developing their own “super-black” pigments and releasing them publicly, explicitly banning Kapoor from purchasing them. Semple also developed his “Pinkest Pink”, forbidding Kapoor’s use of it, to challenge the idea that one artist (or company) could "own" or block access to a colour. The story took a dramatic turn when Kapoor reportedly posted a photo of his middle finger dipped in Pinkest Pink. [Ed: Don’t you just love an upset artist.] This “black paint feud” became a viral cultural moment, highlighting debates about ownership, access and the intersection of art and technology.
More recently, and amusingly, Semple legally changed his name to Anish Kapoor. You can watch him announce that in his Instagram account HERE. Where will it end?
Postscript
Since the debut of Vantablack, other ultra-black materials have emerged — including MIT’s 2019 creation that is even darker, absorbing more than 99.995% of visible light (across angles) – but none have captured the public imagination in quite the same way. Vantablack remains both a scientific marvel and a cultural symbol: the colour of nothing.
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References
wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack
cnet.com/pictures/vantablack-swallows-everything-its-painted-on
interestingengineering.com/innovation/darkest-material-world
hyperallergic.com/287628/anish-kapoor-coats-cloud-gate-in-the-darkest-black-known-to-humanity
thecollector.com/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-controversy
Images
1. VANTA NanoTube arrays with Vantablack circle. Credit: Surrey Labs
2. Vantablack on identical bronze face. Credit: Surrey Labs
3. Anish Kapoor, wrinkled aluminium foil with a portion – equally wrinkled – coated in Vantablack
4. Venturer Concept watch by H. Moser features a Vantablack dial
5. BMW X6 Vantablack at the International Motor Show Germany, 2019
6. Kapoor gives the Pinkest Pink finger to Stuart Semple
7 & 8. Semple legally changes his name to Anish Kapoor, 2024. Watch HERE.
A promotional image of Black 2.0; with Stuart Semple’s pink
