Reducing stray light is a problem that engineers often encounter when designing optical instruments. One method of achieving this reduction is to apply absorptive coatings on an instrument's critical components. Applications for the coating are plentiful; an initial one is on instruments Monitor-3 and VDP on the Russian space mission INTERBALL. A team of researchers from Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the University of California at Berkeley and the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, has developed an optical coating that displays excellent absorption from 17 to 121 nm.