Surrey NanoSystems Ltd. has given Santa Barbara Infrared Inc. (SBIR) the exclusive rights for its ultra-black Vantablack S-VIS surface coating in blackbody calibration sources for the company’s electro-optical instrumentation. The broadband absorption of the Vantablack S-VIS makes it ideally suited to enhance the performance and utility of SBIR’s precision instruments. SBIR will first use Surrey NanoSystems' U.K. facility to apply the Vantablack coating while it establishes a local facility to serve the North American defense, aerospace and electro-optical markets. "The superb broad band absorption of Vantablack coatings and the highly uniform deposition layer helps us to create blackbody sources offering extremely high radiometric performance without caveats — greatly enhancing ease of use,” said Steve McHugh, president of Santa Barbara Infrared. Vantablack is the world's blackest surface coating material for the UV to FIR spectrum. It employs an innovative nanomaterial structure that absorbs virtually all incident light. Vantablack was developed for space-borne imaging applications and offers exceptional IR absorption and excellent thermal, mechanical and environmental stability. Surrey Nanosystems is a developer of nanomaterials and, in particular, super-black coatings. Santa Barbara Infrared designs and manufactures advanced IR and electro-optical test instrumentation for military and commercial sensor systems.