Super black is a surface treatment developed at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom.
The technology to create super black involves chemically etching a nickel-phosphorus alloy.
As a result, infrared light of a wavelength longer than a few micrometers penetrates through the dark layer and has much higher reflectivity.
[3] In 2009, a competitor to the super black material, Vantablack, was developed based on carbon nanotubes.
[4] In 2011, NASA and the US Army began funding research in the use of nanotube-based super black coatings in sensitive optics.