You’ve probably seen the photos. A basketball that looks like a literal hole in the universe. A luxury car that appears to have been photoshopped out of reality, replaced by a flat, terrifyingly dark silhouette. It’s called Vantablack, and for a few years, it was the internet’s favorite "impossible" material. People wanted it for their cars, their bedrooms, their clothes.
It looks fake. It looks like a glitch.
But here’s the thing: you can’t have it. Unless you’re a high-end aerospace engineer or a very specific, very controversial British sculptor, Vantablack is effectively off-limits to the general public. It’s not just because it’s expensive—though it is—but because it’s not actually "paint" in any sense that a normal person would understand. It’s a complex forest of microscopic tubes that requires a laboratory to apply.
What Vantablack actually is (and isn't)
Most people think of black as a color. Scientifically, though, black is just the absence of light. When you look at a black T-shirt, you’re seeing something that absorbs maybe 90% of the light hitting it. The other 10% bounces back to your eye, which is why you can still see the folds in the fabric and the texture of the cotton.
Vantablack is different.
Developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the United Kingdom, the name stands for Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Array. It isn't a pigment. It’s a coating made of carbon nanotubes. Think of it like a field of very tall, very thin grass. When light hits this "field," it gets trapped between the tubes. It bounces around inside the gaps, losing energy with every hit, until it eventually turns into heat.
The result? It absorbs up to 99.965% of visible light.
That 0.035% of light that escapes is so negligible that the human brain can't process it as 3D space. If you coat a crumpled piece of aluminum foil in Vantablack, it looks like a flat black void. Your eyes lose the ability to perceive depth because there are no shadows or highlights to guide your brain. It’s effectively a 2D hole in a 3D world.
The Anish Kapoor controversy that broke the art world
If you want to know why artists get so heated about this stuff, you have to look at Sir Anish Kapoor. In 2016, the news broke that Kapoor had secured exclusive rights to use Vantablack in the field of art.
This was unprecedented.
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Usually, if a new blue or red comes out, anyone with the money can buy it. But Surrey NanoSystems signed a contract that basically told every other artist on the planet to stay away. The backlash was immediate and hilariously petty. Artist Stuart Semple was so annoyed by this "monopoly on a color" that he developed his own pigments—including "The World's Pinkest Pink" and "Black 3.0"—and made them available to everyone except Anish Kapoor.
To buy Semple’s paint, you have to sign a legal disclaimer at checkout confirming that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are not affiliated with him, and you will not let the paint fall into his hands.
Kinda hilarious, right?
But honestly, the "feud" misses a technical reality. Even if Kapoor hadn't signed that deal, you still couldn't use Vantablack in your home studio. The original S-VIS version of Vantablack has to be applied using a process called Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). This involves high temperatures—around 400 degrees Celsius—and specialized vacuum chambers. It’s a chemical engineering feat, not a trip to the craft store.
Why the military wants it (and why you don't)
Vantablack wasn't made for art. It was made for the stars.
When you’re building a multi-billion dollar space telescope, stray light is your worst enemy. If a tiny bit of sunlight bounces off the inside of a telescope casing, it can wash out the faint light from a distant galaxy. By lining those components with Vantablack, engineers can ensure that the only light the sensor "sees" is the light they actually want to measure.
It’s also used in:
- Calibration of black-body sources.
- Internal lining of high-performance cameras.
- Stealth technology for thermal camouflaging.
Because Vantablack is made of carbon, it’s actually quite fragile. You can’t touch it. If you ran your finger across a Vantablack-coated surface, the nanotubes would collapse like a field of wheat under a steamroller. Once they collapse, they lose their light-trapping properties and start reflecting light again. It would just look like a shiny, greasy smudge in the middle of a void.
This is why a Vantablack car—like the BMW VBX6 show car—is a nightmare. You can't wash it. You can't drive it through a rainstorm without risking the integrity of the coating. You definitely can’t park it at a grocery store where someone might lean against it. It is a scientific instrument masquerading as an aesthetic, and that makes it functionally useless for 99% of human life.
The health risks nobody mentions
We need to talk about the "nano" part of carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes are incredibly small and incredibly strong. Because of their size and shape, there have been long-standing concerns in the scientific community about their similarity to asbestos. If inhaled, these tiny fibers can potentially cause lung damage or inflammation.
Surrey NanoSystems is very clear about this: Vantablack is not a toy.
When they apply the coating, it’s done under strict laboratory conditions with intense filtration systems. It’s not something you want flaking off in your living room or rubbing off on your skin. This is the primary reason it isn't sold in spray cans at the hardware store. The liability alone would be a corporate death sentence.
The shift toward "Vantablack-adjacent" paints
Since the world went crazy for Vantablack, other companies have tried to fill the void (pun intended) with products that are safer and easier to use.
Massachusetts-based NanoLab created "Singularity Black," which is also a nanotube-based coating but is slightly more accessible to researchers. Then you have the hobbyist-grade paints like Musou Black from Japan.
Musou Black is an acrylic paint. You can apply it with a brush or an airbrush. It doesn't use nanotubes; instead, it uses a very porous structure to trap light. While it "only" absorbs about 99.4% of light—which is less than Vantablack—the difference is almost impossible for the naked eye to see.
Honestly, for most people, Musou Black is the "Vantablack" they actually want. It’s safe, it’s cheap, and you don’t have to be a world-famous sculptor to buy it.
What happens next for super-black materials?
Researchers are currently looking into "structural" blacks that occur in nature. Some species of birds-of-paradise and certain butterflies have evolved feathers and scales that mimic the light-trapping behavior of nanotubes. These natural structures are much more durable than the lab-grown carbon version.
The goal for 2026 and beyond is to create a coating that is as dark as Vantablack but as tough as house paint.
Imagine a solar panel that absorbs 99.9% of the sun's energy with zero reflection. That’s where the real value lies. Not in making cool-looking statues, but in radical energy efficiency.
How to experience "the void" yourself
If you're obsessed with the idea of Vantablack, you can't buy the real thing, but you can get close.
- Check out the alternatives: If you're an artist or a tinkerer, look into Black 4.0 (by Stuart Semple) or Musou Black. They are the closest things to a "black hole in a jar" that are safe for home use.
- Visit a gallery: Keep an eye out for Anish Kapoor's "non-object" exhibitions. Seeing a Vantablack sculpture in person is a genuinely unsettling experience that photos don't capture.
- Understand the physics: If you’re a student, look into the Rayleigh Criterion and how light interacts with nanostructures. The math behind Vantablack is arguably cooler than the material itself.
- Stay updated on Surrey NanoSystems: They occasionally release videos showing new iterations, including "Vantablack VBx2," which is a non-nanotube version used for larger architectural projects.
Vantablack remains a peak example of how military and aerospace tech can accidentally capture the public's imagination. It's a reminder that the world still has "impossible" things, even if they are made of carbon and kept behind a lab's locked doors.
Actionable Insight: If you are looking to create "void" effects for photography or DIY projects, skip the carbon nanotubes. Stick to high-porosity acrylics like Musou Black. They offer 99% of the visual impact with 0% of the respiratory risk or legal drama involving British knights.